Turn your Friday into a night filled with Jazz at the University of Wyoming Jazz Ensemble concert on April 13, at 7:30 p.m. at Buchanan Center of Performing Arts Concert Hall.
Every year the UW Jazz Studies Department offers four concerts, twice in the fall and spring to provide opportunity and encouragement for students to get familiar with public performances. Each concert features two of the UW’s big bands and a vocal jazz group. This year Wyoming Jazz Ensemble, UW Jazz Ensemble and Western Blue will be showcasing their talents in the form of rhythm.
The concerts are set at the beginning of the year and so are the auditions. The students auditioned individually and were assigned the group accordingly.
“Each one of these groups function just like a class,” Ben Markley, Director of Jazz Studies, said. “It’s one of the big things that we do every year.”
The concert is about 75-80 mins long and will start with the Jazz Ensemble II group directed by Ed Breazeale. They will be performing “The Big Dipper” by Thad Jones, “Jitterbug Waltz” by Fats Waller arranged by Richards, “Yesterdays” by Otto Kern arranged by Taylor and “Song for my Father” by Horace Silver arranged by Taylor.
“These are the songs that have been written and arranged for big bands and then I am an arranger and composer so actually we are going to play a couple of my arrangements,” Markley said.
Then the Western Blue group directed by Kathryn Jones is a vocal band performing “Harlem Nocturne” by Dick Rogers arranged by Michelle Weir, “Blackbird” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder arranged by Kerry Marsh
“It’s definitely different because in the vocal world we kind of talk and sing a certain way and jazz is kind of to break all those rules in a good way, but it’s a lot different than what we are used to,” Jones said.
The Western Jazz Ensemble, directed by Ben Markley will be performing “Tell me a Bedtime Story” by Herbie Hancock arranged by Alan Baylock, “There’s a Small Hotel” by Richard Rogers arranged by Ben Markley, “What’s your beat” by Joel Frahm arranged by Ben Markley and “Flight to Nassau” by Sammy Nestico arranged by Ben Markley.
The top group, Wyoming Jazz Ensemble, also recorded 8 songs in an album named “Winds of the Snowys,” featuring Terell Stafford and Director Markley.
In late February, the groups even traveled and performed at Dazzle Jazz Club in Denver.
Tickets for the concert can be booked at the BCPA ticket counter. The general tickets cost $10.50 for adult, $7.50 for senior, $6.50 for students. All the ticket money goes to the department of music, which helps with the operation expenses, buying music, facility management and other expenses.
A typical jazz band includes five saxophones, four trombones, four trumpets, a piano, a drum and bass. In the college bands, Jazz Ensemble II have six saxophones, four trumpets, three trombones and three in rhythm section; piano, bass and drum. The Wyoming Jazz Ensemble has five saxophones, four trombones, four trumpets and four in rhythm section.
“Dizzy Gillespie was the famous trumpet player, he said ‘jazz is putting notes to rhythm’ and I like that I think rhythm is one of the most defining characteristics of the jazz music,” Merkley said. “And it’s also one of the greatest things that one has ever created in our country. It’s something that is one hundred percent American and it represents the music came together from the melting pile of different cultures of people backgrounds.”
