On March 2, on a cool winter evening in Schroeder Hall, music department faculty Ian Carey directed an event called Jazz Combos. Seawolves and guests attended to enjoy an evening of lighthearted jazz music. It featured eight students performing works of jazz by composers such as Carla Bley, a local composer/ pianist from Oakland, California that was an influential artist in the 1960s Free Jazz Movement.

Most notable was her jazz opera “Escalator Over the Hill”. Edward Ellington, better known as “Duke”, raised in Washington, D.C and known as a successful composer who was one of the greatest jazz bandleaders of his time. He was one of the originators of big band jazz and led his band for more than fifty years and composed thousands of scores.

Some songs that were performed at the event were “Ad Infinitum” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If you Aint’ Got that Swing)”. The performance featured harmonies, rhythms, and most of all, improvisation. Students used a variety of instruments such as flute, piano, drums and guitar while two students sang vocals.

When asked why they had decided to attend the event, Aiyana Evans, a second-year student, replied: “I am in History of Jazz and I am taking it for my upper division GE class and part of that class is having to do concert reports”. She goes on to explain “you go to the concert and write notes during the event and then we have to take each song, do a little bit of background research, and talk about what you saw”.

The student performers were happy to comment on how much they loved performing and how they thought the performance went. “It was awesome. I am the house pianist and in this combo, every year” states second-year and Music major Jomei Greer. After the performance, they went on to say “I guess the only thing I’d add is how proud I am of the group for performing as well as we did considering that most of the ensemble are not jazz majors!”.

June Imler, a third-year student, went on to add “It was very fun. It isn’t the most I’ve prepared for a concert, but the nice thing about jazz is that there’s more leniency if you make ‘mistakes’. As long as everyone visually communicates and we can come together on a chord or the head, it will all work out! We were able to ‘keep swimming’ despite it all”.

At the end of the event, students praised how they liked the performance. “I prefer jazz over classical because I find the way the drum and the piano play very fascinating just to hear and definitely more interesting than classical, in my opinion” states Delaney Hopp, an English creative writing major. The audience marveled at how well the performance went for it being the first jazz show the ensemble had done this semester. The next jazz performance can be found on the SSU website.