Concert to highlight Jazz musicians
By Nate Seltenrich
Since its rise to prominence in the 1920s, jazz music has influenced countless popular music genres, styles and performers in the United States. Contemporary artists like Norah Jones and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, among a host of less well-known performers, continue to develop and build off of traditional jazz formats a century after the genre first appeared.
Yet jazz music has remained on the fringe of popular music throughout the majority of its life and remains misunderstood or entirely unacknowledged by most purveyors of popular culture.
Santa Clara's Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo groups will be allowing students, faculty and staff, as well as the local public, the opportunity to experience the magic of live jazz this Friday, February 27th, at their annual Winter Concert.
The concert will take place in the Recital Hall in the Music and Dance Building and will start at 8 p.m.
Tickets for the event are $5 for students, $8 for seniors 60+ and Faculty and Staff and $10 for the general public.
Santa Clara's Jazz Combo, a seven-piece group with a strong emphasis on improvisation, will open the show with four songs. The Jazz Ensemble will cover the second half of the program with eight, more tightly arranged songs.
Both sets are oriented toward well-known jazz standards and classics.
Between the combo's seven members and the ensemble's 16 members, only five members are Santa Clara students. In the ensemble are Freshman saxophonist Jennifer Moody and Freshman saxophonist Neal Battaglia. In the combo are Senior saxophonist Alexandra Dalmau and Sophomore pianist Kyle O'Brian. Exchange student Per Henrik Johnson plays the trumpet in both bands.
The remaining members cover a wide range of ages, from recent alumni up to musicians in their 50s. Although student enrollment in the groups is especially low this year, it usually comes to about half of the total members.
Dalmau first started playing the saxophone when she was in sixth grade. She has played in the Jazz Combo since she transferred to Santa Clara at the start of her junior year. She plays the tenor sax in the combo, but also occasionally plays the soprano sax.
"Jazz gives you the freedom to express yourself through music," she said. "When playing a tune, you can add your own flavor to the melody, and then give your interpretation of the song in the improvised solo."
O'Brien first started listening to jazz when he was 13. He started out playing the stand-up bass, and listened to jazz to hear what the bassists were doing. Three years later, O'brien switched to piano, which he came to prefer because it allows more freedom.
His attraction to jazz music also centers on improvisation: "The spontaneity is both invigorating and very challenging as it requires players to listen and react to the situation," he said.
Moody, who plays alto sax in the Jazz Ensemble, first fell in love with jazz over eight years ago. She soon picked up the sax and learned both tenor and alto. She also plays in the South Bay Swing Band, tutors saxophone students at Buchser Elementary School and is minoring in Music at Santa Clara.
Battaglia has also been interested in jazz for about eight years â€" ever since he heard Latin jazz and saxophone quartets playing in Monterey. "I like jazz since it's a complicated and wide-ranging style of music," he said. "-They make it interesting by interacting with each other and improvising."
John Russell, who has directed both groups for nine years, shares his students' enthusiasm for jazz. "I want to keep the music alive. I want to give students and community members a chance to perform live jazz," he said.
Besides their on-campus concerts at the end of each quarter, both the combo and the ensemble give at least one other performance each quarter.
Throughout the year, they also participate in 2-3 judged jazz competitions.
Musicians and vocalists interested in joining either of Santa Clara's jazz groups should contact John Russell at jrussell@scu.edu.
û Contact Nate Seltenrich at (408) 554-4546 or nseltenrich@scu.edu