The Jazz Combo student ensemble is a concert in which students incorporate improvisation, informative history and upbeat jazz music to create an interactive experience for the audience.
It will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Performing Arts Complex on the Edinburg campus. Admission is $5.
Low brass Assistant Professor William Haugeberg is directing the ensemble.
As a director, his responsibilities include helping select the music, providing guidance to the students and helping them improve their skills.
The concert will consist of a rhythm section made up of various instruments paired with an improvisation section.
“The Jazz Combo ensemble is what we consider small chamber jazz music,” Haugeberg said. “So, this consists of a rhythm section which has bass, drums, hand percussion, piano and horns. This will include trombone and saxophone [and] we go ahead and play standard jazz heads.”
Graduate student Marco Guerra said the smaller group of five or six musicians in the ensemble is a more intimate, condensed version of other shows he has previously played.
There will also be an improvisation section made up of different arrangements done by students.
Music education junior Jeremy Warner plays double bass in the ensemble.
“What makes the Jazz Combo different from other ensembles is just a few musicians that get together in a room and just read off some charts,” Warner said. “Usually there is a conductor to help cue our parts, but this, we have to look at each other to communicate what’s going on.”
Informational sessions discussing jazz and its history will also take place in between music pieces.
“We’re going to have some informational talking in between the pieces so they know a little bit of history of what’s going on with it,” he said. “We’ll introduce the members and talk a little bit about jazz in general, but it’ll be semi-educational.”
Haugeberg said the show differs from other classical performances since it’s more flexible in structure.
“It’s more upbeat than your normal classical ensemble concert,” Haugeberg said. “It’s not quite so uptight, so there is more audience interaction and it’s not quite so stuffy, as some might say.”
Large ensemble jazz bands are usually sit-down events in which attendees experience large-scale arrangements with multiple instruments. Up to 16 members play music that spans different eras.
This concert differs from past jazz ensembles by incorporating improvisation.
“What we’re doing, instead, is you’re taking a melody that is being interpreted by the performer and then there is going to be a lot more improvisation in there, so a lot of things will be made up on the spot, for lack of a better term,” Haugeberg said. “So, it’s based off of patterns and the chords that are going on and a lot of jazz history.”
Rehearsal for the show began about half a year ago and the musicians rehearsed up to two times a week to prepare for it.
Music education sophomore Brandon Treviño, a saxophonist, said attending the show gives the campus community the
opportunity to experience the ideas of the music group.
“It’s really interesting, like, to make people get to hear an ensemble like this ,where they get to hear different sorts of ideas which is what we do, we put our ideas down to our playing when others might not even know that we are.”
Haugeberg said he hopes the concert will be an enjoyable experience for the campus community.
“Jazz is kind of fun,” he said. “People tend to enjoy it. You tap your toes to it a little bit more and this is, you know, something that people might even dance to. I’m just hoping that it’s going to be a fun experience and I’m looking forward to it.”
