UVa Jazz Ensemble directed by John D'earth
On Friday, October 30th The UVA Jazz Ensemble, directed by John D’earth, will present their first concert of the 2015/16 academic year, Scary New Band! It is true that the concert falls on the day before Halloween, so it will behoove them to be particularly scary that night. Scary music like Sun Ra’s A Call for All Demons and Bob Brookmeyer’s ABC Blues will definitely be performed. But this first concert of the year has been “scary” for D’earth and for the veterans/survivors of the Jazz Ensemble, for other reasons. After the tragedy known as “graduation,” decimated their ranks by more than half, last spring, they all wondered how long it would take to replace those missing voices. And, of course, it is the most advanced players who tragically “graduate.”
“We were very worried when we lost all those fine players,” D’earth lamented. “We’ve had trouble finding trombones for several years now, anyway, and we needed many key players, not to mention soloists. Long story short, we lucked out. Major new players have come into the band. I’m thinking of our new grad-student baritone saxophonist, Matt Van Haeten, who is one of the strongest players we’ve had in recent years. Also, Nathanael Nelson on bass trombone. I mean we have a bass trombone! We have five trombone players. And we still have our resident jazz trombone master in community member Doug Bethel. In fact, we are adding strong partners to some of the strongest veteran players in the ensemble. New jazz trumpet soloist Julian Brass will join trumpet mainstay Harrison Frye. Tenor saxophonist Kevin McMahon joins longtime tenor soloist Matthew Smith and alto saxophonist Jaeyoon Park joins our lead and solo altoist Justin Peruzzi. We have two eager, promising young bass players and a great new drummer, Richard Davis, who will join our fantastic drummer of several years, Pat Hayes. No new flutes, but we have everything we need in veteran flautist Claire Rogers.”
The program will cover a wide range of styles and jazz history. Classics like Count Basie’s April in Paris and Basie Straight Ahead, Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust, and Billy Strayhdorn's Isfahan will be joined by Africanate originals like McCoy Tyner’s Peresina and Michael Brecker’s African Skies. Pure be-bop will be represented by Charlie Parker’s Moose the Mooche as will 70s style jazz/funk with Randy Brecker’s groundbreaking Some Skunk Funk. Two masterworks by valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, the latinate Samba Con Getchu and the deeply swinging yet avant-garde ABC BLUES, go a long way toward defining the new directions in big band composition that took place in the later 20th century and are still taking place, now.
“We run our band as a democratic autocracy on the Duke Ellington model,” D’earth remarked. “Every voice is different and every voice counts. We want to hear what the individuals in the band have to say and we are very fortunate in our players right now. The new band sounds great! We went from being scared to being pretty scary in about a month. And we’re playing a cross section of some of my own favorite charts from over the years, as well as some new ones. It’s all about the potential of the band; it’s scary how good we could get! I’m very excited, and I think our audience will be very excited, by the way these folks are playing big band jazz!”
Tickets are $10 for the general public, $5 for students and free for UVa Students who reserve in advance. UVA Faculty and Staff receive a 10% discount. Tickets can be purchased at the UVa Arts Box Office at http://www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu or by calling 434.924.3376. Tickets will also be available at the door beginning one hour prior to the show.
Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA's historic lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda. (map) Parking is available in the central grounds parking garage on Emmet Street, in the C1 parking lot off McCormick Rd, and in the parking lots at the UVA Corner. Handicap parking is available in the small parking lot adjacent to Bryan Hall.