Review of a Jazz Concert at Bergen Community College

At Bergen Community College there was a jazz concert at West Hall in room 226. The jazz concert was played by mixed group of college students and Bergen catholic high schoolers. The room was not very big, there was a drummer, pianist, a professor on the bass, one trombone, six saxophones, two flutes, three people playing three different types of guitars and two other people playing instruments that I was not able to see because of where I was seated. There was a girl that was playing the flute and saxophone as well.

The band played six songs, Blue Bossa, Cedar’s Blues, Al’s Mist, Freedo, Jazz Dance, Mr. P C and Stolen Moments. Tey started off paying Blue Bossa that had four solos in the song. The solos were Andy on the guitar, John on the piano, a girl on the saxophone, those two did really good. My favorite songs are Blue Bossa and Mr. P C. Blue Bossa is a popular standard written in 1963 by Kenny Dorham. But it was first released by Joe Henderson on his album. Blue Bossa is one of the first Latin tunes that many jazz musicians encounter. This song is a sixteen bar tune, challenging for beginner improvisers. It was a fast tempo, during the solos the background music was fast but the soloist were going slowers. This song had a low harmony and melody.

In Al’s Mist there were four solos, Amdy on the guitar, the girl on the saxophone, the conductor and John on the piano. This song is written by Al Grey and it was recorded in 2002, even though Al Grey had passed away in 2000. This song is simple ballad with a warm sound; it is eighteen measures long, eight A sections and ten B sections but the song was originally written in C form.

Mr. P C is a 12 bar piece in minor blues form, composed by John Coltrane in 1959. The band played this song really well. The solos in this song were Joe on the saxophone, Andy on the guitar, the girl on the saxophone, John on the piano, Sam on the trombone and Andrew on the saxophone. John Coltrane named this song after one of his bass players Paul Chambers. This song was sometimes played with a fast swing feel. It has a nice beat to it and it made me want to tap my foot to the rhythm.

The conductor said at the end of the concert that the band had never done improv before and I think they did a pretty good job for their first time doing improv. At some point in the songs there were noticeable mistakes or at least it sounded like a mistake and they tried to play it off as if it was on purpose. They were noticeable because it would sort of move off beat and would not be the same rhythm as the song they were playing. My favorite solos was the conductor, Andy on the guitar and the girl on the saxophone. Andy and the girl seemed as if they were pros at improvisation. There were also some other solos, the drummer, three guitars playing all together (James, Victor and Andy) and then each one separately, Sam on the trombone, Joe on the saxophone, and there was another guy on the saxophone but I didn’t catch his name.

In conclusion, the concert was overall good, I would definitely go see another one. I have never really listened to jazz before and I think after that concert I should because I actually enjoyed listening to it, I even recorded some of the songs. I feel like the conductor should have had a microphone though because when he was announcing the solos and the names of the songs I was barely able to hear him from where I was sitting, especially when the instruments were playing while he was speaking. however, everything else was nice, the band and the slos did a great job and I did not expect them to be high schoolers either. This band played better than what I remember hearing from the high school band.