During my time at UNC’s Summer Jazz workshop, I have met many talented students both in the performer and journalism tracks. Many of the participants I have had the pleasure to meet are multi-talented instrumentalists, vocalists, or recreational musicians coming to learn jazz. One of such students who I recently had the pleasure of interviewing is Caleb Gill, a rising UNC sophomore from Oxford, NC majoring in computer science.
Caleb is part of the journalism track of the workshop and his day consists of attending classes on jazz history and basic music skills, music journalism, and sitting in on multiple lessons and demonstrations daily, including piano lessons with Professor Stephen Anderson and combo group practices. He says he enjoys his classes particularly because of the direct, small group instructions, and likes his lecturers, Dan Davis and Professor Andy Bechtel. Caleb had previously been in Professor Anderson’s Introduction to Jazz class and heard about the summer jazz workshop through him.
Caleb came to the course to learn more about jazz, which he had always had an interest in listening to. He notes that along with both classic and prog rock, he has always liked older jazz, new jazz, and thinks fusion jazz has a particularly interesting sound. His favorite hobby, video gaming, connected to his passion for music in our conversation because he is able to appreciate the music in games like Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which we agree has an amazing, award-winning soundtrack. He also enjoys playing the drums recreationally and credits his dad, who plays guitar, and brother, who plays the keyboard, with inspiring him to learn to play drums and giving him a passion for music.