Concert Report: September 21, 2017

In terms of my first concert report for the History of Jazz course, I attended a faculty concert on Thursday, September 21, 2017 at the Bezanson Recital Hall in the Fine Arts Center here at UMass. The concert featured Professor Fumi Tomita on bass, Jeff Holmes on piano and trumpet, Felipe Salles playing the saxophone (both alto and tenor), and Tom Giampietro on the drums. Included in the performance was a wide array of music, including nine total songs by such jazz artists as Ornette Coleman, Hampton Hawes, Charlie Haden, Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz, and Charlie Parker. Professor Tomita claimed that the concert was most prominently a tribute to Haden, who was a great bass player in the history of jazz and involved in many of the songs of the program even if he is not the main name associated with the respective performances. 

The concert was quite an enjoyable experience as the music was particularly pleasant to take in on the evening and it was amusing to watch the musicians adapt on the fly when, for example, “Irene” by Hawes and “First Song” by Haden were switched in terms of the order in which they were performed. And yet, they still did not miss a beat, most notably, Giampietro was completely prepared despite his lack of knowledge that the songs’ order was being switched. Additionally, this was the first jazz concert I have attended in my life. In the past, I have attended the concerts of artists and groups like Colin Hay, Coldplay, Billy Joel, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. My past experiences with jazz are mostly the music my parents introduced me to. I knew the names of people like Hoagy Carmichael and Thelonious Monk from a very young age and I have always gravitated to the genre. Hearing it live was immensely enjoyable.

Because of my exposure to a great deal of jazz music, I have been fairly familiar with the songs we have listened to during class, but I will concede that the styles of music played at this particular concert were slightly new to me. In detailing what I gained from this jazz experience and what I inferred was transpiring in terms of the jazz genre, I would like to discuss the second song played in depth. “Peace” by Ornette Coleman felt different from “Una Muy Bonita,” the preceding song, as soon as it commenced. For one, “Peace” had a much slower tempo and many of the notes that introduce the song and are repeated throughout the entirety of “Peace” are bluesy and are certainly more tied to the blues than the predecessor, “Una Muy Bonita,” which featured a much faster tempo due to it feeling more like a song one could dance to rather than “Peace,” which was much bluesier. “Una Muy Bonita,” in this way, was similar to the lighter tone of Bix Beiderbecke’s “Singin’ the Blues.” Lastly, the breaks are different in “Peace” as opposed to “Una Muy Bonita.” There are many bass solos in “Una Muy Bonita,” for example, and the breaks in “Peace” are performed by the trumpet and the saxophone as the bass and drums take the time to be absent from the music, which they certainly were not in “Una Muy Bonita.”

“Peace” does not seem to be comprised of a paradigm, but rather a sort of collection of ideas put together to craft a song that becomes an appealing blend of blues and jazz. Tom Giampietro favored brushes over drumsticks for the backing he provided on “Peace” while he set the tone for the song with his slow, repetitive, and gentle beat that could only be faintly heard, but it matched the general feel of the song that was provided by the trumpet and saxophone. Before delving into this, though, it is important to address the role played by Professor Tomita’s bass. Like the drums, the bass was important for establishing a rhythm and a tempo to the song as it came in very near to the beginning of “Peace,” while still allowing for the trumpet and saxophone to be given their own time. However, when the refrain was introduced for the first time, it allowed for the audience to hear that, in addition to providing a backing for the entire song and setting both the mood and tone, the bass is also doing extra work in terms of matching the notes of the trumpet and the saxophone.

While “Peace,” in my mind does not have an inordinate amount in common with the songs we listened to during the “roots of jazz” period, it does share some similarities with the two songs we listened to from Louis Armstrong. “West End Blues” by Armstrong was a song that placed a heavy emphasis on brass instruments, especially the trumpet, which is an element that is certainly present in “Peace,” as well. However, I consider it more closely related to “Weather Bird” by Armstrong. While there is no piano present in “Peace” (this particular connection would be evident in the dual song, “Irene,” in which Holmes and Professor Tomita matched each other), the driving force behind the two songs is similar in that it is rooted around rhythms that are unpredictable and special interactions between two instruments. The saxophone and the trumpet from Salles and Holmes, respectively, were interacting with one another throughout “Peace,” as they engaged in melodies and harmonies that mimicked how a bluesy singer would approach putting lyrics at the forefront of “Peace.”

Ultimately, I feel that this particular jazz concert was not necessarily an exceptionally strong connection to what we have been learning in class up to this point, but I do feel that, by introducing artists with different styles like Coleman, Parker, and Haden, it helped prime me for the lessons to come as blues, bebop, and other such styles of jazz come into play as we trace the history of jazz to the present. It was also somewhat thrilling to see the jazz performances live and watch the contrasting conflict and the harmonious unions between the varying instruments because it was entirely unknown to me what was coming next, as opposed to other concerts I attended in the past, which were comprised of songs I already knew all the words to. This jazz concert was a tribute to Haden and an incredibly valuable moment in my personal experiences with music.

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