Chicago Plan Essay

After “Indiana” was performed, the chamber orchestra transitioned to a more dolce and pesante “Black and Blue.” Throughout this song, each performer played softly, keeping the dynamic at a piano level until Armstrong’s trumpet began to raise the dynamic to a more mezzo piano level. The song’s

The word peace can be heard again in “Celebration”, a non-standard AABA form and a festive communion of horns and vocals that thrive at a daring 5/4 tempo and flutters with brisk, colorful improvisations by Walrath, Hilts, and Parrott on baritone.

The following piece, Harold Land’s Compulsion, was arranged for a trombone-less quintet engagement and spread colorful post-bop energy.

Wes Montgomery’s groovy “Full House” starts by packaging all the original guitaristic steam in Jones’ well-measured solo, passing by Carl Maraghi’s magnetic baritone before the epic finale. The vivacity felt here opposes to the more tranquil vibes of the jazz standards “I Thought About You” and “ In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”.

With Tag Book, American drummer-composer Charles Rumback, a mainstay of the Chicago jazz scene, has his second release of the year on ears&eyes label with only nearly six months separating it from the previous release, Three. If the latter was a collection of three original compositions plus a rendition of Andrew Hill’s “Erato”, all of them complying with a 3/4 time signature, the newest album comprises five homogeneous pieces executed by the same trio with Jim Baker on piano and John Tate on acoustic bass.

The band was directed by Jordan Sayre and Arnold Rose. The band started off with “Perdido Arranged by Roland Barret/Juan Tizol”. For a high school band they had very strong beginning, the song was very fast tempo, and lots of bold accents through the piece. The tenor sax was really the star of this piece the band was really following him instead the tenor sax kind of keeping time and beat. The band played about 2 more songs and LCHS Jazz I came on to stage about played another 3 songs as well. One the played was Called “The Chicken arranged by Kris Berg/Alfred James”. This songs included a lot of saxophones solos from alto sax to baritone sax. The trumpet also played a big part to for solo, this piece they did lot of crescendos as well as decrescendos. It gave a more bold jazz feeling which I really enjoyed. Last but not least the NMSU jazz I came about on the stage to finish out the concert. They had four songs to play instead of three like the other bands. They started off with “Cell Talk composed by Sammy Nestico”. This piece was a calmer piece like a modern typical jazz piece. There was great transitions as well bold accents through the pieces. The band ends with a piece called “Uno Mas composed by Paul Lopez”. This piece was more fast tempo as well bold accents was well especially from the trumpets. It gave me more a swing vibe it was super neat to hear. This piece was perfect

“Minor Mystery,” the first piece played by the group, was composed and arranged by Ellen Rowe. This song is a minor blues that is normally set to be played at a medium swing, however, this performance was taken at a slightly faster pace. This allowed for the piece to be played with more energy, rather than just standing still. “Minor Mystery” is a work that lets the ensemble demonstrate their stylistic technique. This piece is riddled with dynamic contrasts and notations such as marcatos, accents, and tenutos. This proved to be a challenge, due to the fact that not everyone has the same concept of how these notes should be played. While learning and rehearsing this song, stylistic concepts were probably what we spent the most time on. In order to really sound together and like one cohesive unit, the perfection of these articulations was crucial.

After peaking though my program to better understand what to expect throughout the concert, I realized there were going to be two performances with 2 different ensembles as well as directors. Promptly at 7:30 pm, the band of Jazz Ensemble II came out, gathered their places on stage, and began to play “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” by Mercer Ellington. I immediately recognized the stereotypical jazz setup such as the primary melodic instruments: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, as well as the piano, bass and

The ensemble was more colorful with the addition of guitar solos as well as saxophone solos. Although having many solos, the ensemble came together as a whole for this song and heightened the melody by blending well when there wasn’t a solo. This piece was the

After a few second, bass and two percussions joined them and then two woodwinds, three brass and violin began to play in a calm rhythm. In the middle of the composition, when the brasses and the woodwinds accompanied, the rhythm changed, it became faster and that part was so wonderful and energetic of this composition. The ensemble did an excellent job of keeping with the beat.

The concert night began with almost 20 minutes of performances by The Jazz Band that performed five songs: “Choo Choo Ch” (Horton et al., 1946),“Dreamsville” (Mancini, 1960), “Work Song” (Adderley,

In the piece, Blues After Dark, Gillespie and Stitt both introduce the piece with a melodic riff. After about 5 measures of the same riff, both musicians change the direction of the tune leading up to the alternating solos. During the solos, both musicians show their musical abilities by using multiple effects, such as improvisation, tempo modification, and using crescendos and decrescendos. After alternating multiple times, the

I attended the Brent Wallarab’s Jazz Ensemble’s performance on March 9th located at the Musical Arts Center at Indiana University Bloomington. It started at 8pm and ended around 9:10pm. Since it is a jazz ensemble, there are lots of instruments involve into the music. As always, piano, bass, guitar and drums serve for the rhythm section, but for some particular songs, vibraphone also serves as the rhythm keeper too. For the woodwind part, there are two alto saxophones, two tenor saxophones, one baritone saxophone and one flute. For the brass part, there are five trumpets and four trombones (one of the trombones is a bass trombone). The atmosphere and the environment were all great because there was a jazz combo’s performance right before the

Acoustic guitar by Jerry, vocal & piano by Zino Park, bass guitar by Clay Luna, vocal & guitar by Zen, guitar & saxophone by Dan Stark, drum by Skip Mccain, and harp by Monica.

The second vocal ensemble of the night started out with a song which included a twelve bar blues, called “ I use to know you”. This performance consisted of the most combinations of solos of the night as well as using an improvising style. The entire band started all together which led to a Trumpet solo. Then Jose on the Sax did his solo followed by the pianist comping. Then the choir along with the band joined together to lead to a female solo which was particularly interesting since she was scatting. The second performance of this ensemble was “Spring can really hang you up the most” which consisted of 3/4 time and 4/4 time. This started with a female solo vocalist then a male one. The band as a whole played together and ended with a male solo scatting. The third and shortest performance of the night was a vocal acapella piece, “Love walked in” which was short and sweet. The fourth performance of the night was a Richmond Rogers piece. This had a rhythmic swing/salsa feel from the “Lady is a tramp”. This started with the rhythm section, with the male vocalist and horns. Then the female vocalist from the choir joined and concluded this piece. The fifth performance for the group was a sequel to voice stand an acapella piece by Greg Jaspers. This song started with the choir using their voices as the instruments altogether. The final performance of the night was one of