By: Ashlyn Armock, Aquinas Reporter
Aquinas’ Collegiate Singers performing ‘Round Midnight’ with the Aquinas Jazz Band – Photo by Ashlyn Armock
The Jazz Band and Chamber Strings held a collaborative concert on Friday, Nov. 1. Between the two ensembles, plus the appearance of Aquinas College’s Collegiate Singers, they performed an impressive selection of jazz focused pieces.
This concert was an unusual combination considering how abnormal it is for the Jazz Band to be exclusively conducting a concert with the Chamber Strings.
The concert began with the Chamber Strings, under the direction of Joseph Oprea. Oprea wanted to include a jazz influence with the first two pieces they performed. The two, Night and Day by Cole Porter and Lullaby by George Gershwin, exhibited some difficulty for the performers because of “the artificial harmonics and syncopation,” said Oprea. The Evil Eye and the Hideous Heart by Alan Lee Silva was the Chamber Strings last piece and inspired by Edgars Allen Poe’s famous short story The Tell-Tale Heart. Overall, “The group has worked really hard. Despite being a small group and only meeting once a week, they were really prepared for their performance,” said Oprea.
Aquinas’ Jazz Band performing ‘Spring can really hang you up the most’ – Photo by Ashlyn Armock
The second half of the concert was covered by the Jazz band. “The Jazz Band’s overall theme for the semester was time,” said Thomas Pollett. All the songs throughout the performance would follow that concept. Each song had something within the title that followed suit with the theme. This includes songs like Spring can really hang you up the most by Tommy Wolf and Time Stream by Sammy Nestico.
In the middle of the Jazz Band’s performance, there was a guest appearance of Aquinas’ Collegiate Singers. The group combined with the Jazz Band for the song Round Midnight by Thelonious Monk. The Collegiate Singers were also joined by their director Dr. Emmanuel De Leon after one member couldn’t participate. “Balance is crucial so when someones missing in such a small group, it is a big deal,” said De Leon. Round Midnight is the only song that Collegiate singers performed in the concert.
A point of interest within the concert was the last number performed by the Jazz Band. It was a song labeled Cookin Parsley Thyme by Julian LaFontesee. As a part of his senior year, both La Fontess and Pollett decided to include an original of La LaFontesee’s. A slight alteration was made to the title of LaFontesee’s piece though. The song went from being titled ‘Cookin Parsley’ to ‘Cookin Thyme’ in order to follow the time theme the Jazz Band has been following. The song was a combination of funk and fast-paced jazz featuring an electric piano and bass.
According to Oprea and Pollett, a large point of the concert was to challenge the performers with things they were not used to. This included things such as the jazz focused arrangements with lots of syncopation for the Chamber Strings and faster tempo pieces for the Jazz Band. According to Aquinas sophomore Kyle Davine though, the band was not all that challenged by any of the songs. “However, I found it difficult to play with some of the tempo changes that were suddenly implemented into our set. They were changes that were not previously mediated or rehearsed, so it really threw me through a loop,” said Davine.
Overall, the concert was a huge success despite the last minute changes and missing students. The Jazz Band and Chamber Strings had a huge turnout and largely terrific performance.
The Saint 