Author: Brandon Overbeek

The UNC Jazz Workshop was a very fun and interesting experience for me. It allowed me to contextualize the history of Jazz that I learned with professor Alamo in Summer Session 1 and kind of contextualize that knowledge in a modern setting. Below are my four biggest takeaways:

Journalism is Fun

I really enjoyed taking the journalism course and learning some different things specific to journalism that I wouldn’t have known had I taken the course. From things to being careful with how you title an article to how you can hyperlink and tag the article in order to be more apparent in Google searches. I think this experience will push me to take a couple of journalism classes at UNC before I graduate, schedule and academics permitting. The post that probably highlights a few of the things I’ve learned in the journalism course pretty well is written here.

The Kids Are Alright

It was fun watching high schoolers and college students younger than me learn how to make music and get better at their instruments. I enjoyed being able to observe the process of them figuring out how to play as a cohesive unit in their combos, and also watching the instructors kinda guide them in their solos but largely letting them figure it out. That sort of self-discovery in the music is very important, and I appreciated that the instructors sort of let them find it themselves rather than dictate what they needed to play and when in a solo. Jazz is a largely improvisational and experiential music, so them feeling the notes and rhythms through for themselves was so important to me, and I was glad the instructors shared this method of teaching.

Juan Alamo is a Beast On Vibraphone

The La Fiesta Latin Jazz Combo was so freaking fun to watch. It was my favorite concert of the whole week. Latin has always been a fun music to me and the percussion heavy sections throughout that are written and codified into Latin’s very existence always spoke to me. When Juan Alamo would solo it was so cool watching a virtuousic performer just rip up and down the keyboard. I knew he had to be good because he was a professor at UNC, but actually watching the man work was amazing. You can see where I livetweeted it under the #UNCJazz tag on Twitter.

Cultural Enrichment

For me, I feel like summer 2021 was the Summer of Jazz. I took a jazz history clas, I took the jazz history workshop, I’ve been listening to lots of jazz music. It’s been a very enriching and exciting experience overall for me. I had always like jazz music and Fusion music and old-timey type music like Frank Sinatra due to video games like Bioshock and Fallout and learning more about the genres that molded the aesthetic for that time was amazing. I feel better knowing what I do about jazz. I recommend this class to any music majors that would like to learn more about a genre of music and also anyone who needs a fun way to get the Experiential Education credit.

 

The UNC Jazz Workshop brings a lot of interesting and unique students to the program in order to immerse them in a Jazz music-making experience. Some perform while some report on the week of music making. One such student is Danielle Gladstone.

Danielle is a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Originally from Smithtown, New York, she is in the final year of her biology degree and is also seeking a music minor.

Danielle is attending the workshop this year under the Journalism and Jazz History track. When asked why she decided to take the Jazz Workshop this summer, she said it was, “primarily the [Experiential Education] credit” but that she also liked the musical genre of Jazz.

Her favorite part of the workshop so far is learning about the history of Jazz. Danielle said, “I learned a lot in a short amount of time. Professor Davis is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about jazz and making sure we understand Jazz’s impact today.”

One thing she looks forward to getting out of the remaining time is to see more of the combo lessons. She explained to me that there was a lot of overwhelming sound that she experienced in the Piano specific group lessons. “There’s a lot of sound, and it’s overwhelming.” Danielle was told by Professor Anderson that that’s just part of the music making process, is the creativity and the chaos. Danielle told me she’d like to see more of that and more of how that translates to the stage and performing.

Danielle sees herself as a very creative person saying, “It’s so challenging to be a specialist when you see the value in your own [hobbies] and so on.” Danielle likes to sing and has experience dancing and composing music.  When not in class during the summer, she finds herself hanging out with her family or playing Breath of the Wild.

Danielle has a job in the form of her internship with the Marsico Lung Institute at the UNC School of Medicine, dealing with lung diseases and cystic fibrosis. During the next summer session she plans on taking Spanish 203 to get her language electives knocked out before finishing this year.

On Monday, June 21st, the annual UNC Summer Jazz Workshop met for the start of the week. To end of a challenging first day of practicing, classes, and music making the students enrolled in the workshop were shown a virtuoisic display of Jazz music making from Assistant Professor Rahsaan Barber, UNC Wilmington Associate Professor Jerald Shynett and their jazz quintet composed of UNC Music Professors and Coordinators. 

The concert was held in Moeser Auditorium on UNC’s campus and also hosted on YouTube for members of the workshop and family. The stream experienced some audio issues at start, but once those were out of the way the production really got moving. 

The quintet itself was composed of an upright bass, accompanying piano, drumset, trombone and saxophone. Barber was on sax and Shynett was playing trombone. The setup was very interesting. In order to abide by the CDC’s guidelines and regulations for social distancing due to COVID-19, the rhythm section composed of the bass, piano, and drums were on stage in Moeser auditorium, while Rahsaan Barber and Jerald Shynett were in a separate room. However due to some audio engineering magic, you would never be able to tell as they all blended together very well on stream. 

The first piece was very enjoyable to listen to, and sounded like essential jazz. Shynett’s solo playing reminded me of Louis Armstrong and his scat-singing and the way he’d play his trumpet. It was a gentle walking piece. I could almost smell the cigar smoke and cheap booze around me. It felt like being in Vegas in an old movie my parents would probably watch. 

The second piece was entitled “Leap of Faith” and was written by Barber before he had his first kid, and his journey into becoming a father for the first time. It’s a faster tempo than the one before and feels adventurous. Like elevator music almost, but more fun. The soft cymbal taps combined with the toms and snare taps from the drummer really help set the mood and tone of the piece. The drum solo also really stood out to me by being an impressive display of both volume control and virtuousic playing. 

The third piece was entitled “Pee Wee.” It started out slower than the two prior pieces, and used that slow momentum to fully build to their hard-hitting cadences. Barber and Shynett’s duets and solos were absolutely sublime. The way they were able to match each other and play off each other was absolutely brilliant. 

The next piece was called “Swing That Thing.” This piece was a fun callback to styles of early swing jazz and was markedly faster than the first piece the group played. This piece was fun to listen to and probably would have been even more fun to dance to. 

The fourth piece, “The Mountain and the Sky” felt more like a bluesy ballad. It had a nice lilt and relaxed feel. This one in particular wasn’t my favorite but I am also a big fan of the faster pieces. 

The final piece, “Just in Time,” was where the drummer really got to shine. The piece begins with the drums and then is joined by the bass and piano. The piano feels like it’s playing a stride rhythm in the beginning, before getting out of the way for the saxophone and trombone. Overall, this was a very fun piece to listen to.

I really enjoyed having the privilege of watching this performance. Barber’s virtuoisic playing on saxophone was an absolute delight. The way he swelled phrases to the cadence point and the flurry at which he could release notes was crash. Shynett was no different. He was able to play some captivating licks throughout that grabbed my attention everytime.