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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill‘s  Summer Jazz Workshop is well underway. Musicians of all ages can be heard honing their craft in the halls of the Kenan Music Building. One question worth asking, though:

· Why come to UNC to study Jazz?

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Sam Cifani, a pianist participating in the Jazz Workshop, to find out.

“I’m self-taught,” he says. Hearing him practicing on the piano, though, you’d think he was coached by Nat King Cole or Duke Ellington. “I just wanted to see where I’m at.”

Learning on your own can be a daunting challenge. Sam feels he has gaps in his ability, being self-taught, and aims to smooth those out over the course of the workshop.

The workshop helps in this regard: whereas jamming with other musicians and learning together can be a challenge in more rural settings or over the summer, the workshop offers participants daily and nightly jam sessions.

“I went to one of the late night jam sessions,” Sam says. “I enjoyed it a lot.”

That’s exactly what the workshop gives its participants: an opportunity to grow alongside fellow musicians. However, it doesn’t stop there. The faculty — industry professionals and published musicians — provide lessons on individual instruments.

“The teachers are great; they just give such great advice and ideas on jazz,” Sam replied when asked about the professors.

In the evenings, too, participants are invited to join their piers in Moeser Auditorium for daily concerts from Grammy Award nominated musicians like Kate McGarry.

It seems evident to me that what the Jazz Workshop offers is a truly special opportunity for budding musicians to grow and learn in a rich, vibrant, community of fellow players.

 

In its second day out of five, the UNC Summer Jazz Workshop is going strong.

Today, I had the chance to speak briefly with one of the workshop’s participants, guitarist Espen Raustol. Raustol agreed to be interviewed just as he was leaving one of the daily guitar lessons that runs from 3:15-4:15 p.m.

Raustol is a rising high school junior from Asheville, North Carolina. He said he came to the workshop to learn from professional jazz artists, among whose ranks he would like to find himself in a few years.

He said that he has played jazz guitar for “the last two or three years,” and that his biggest inspiration as a guitarist of the genre has been the great Wes Montgomery.

When asked if he was contemplating attending UNC once he graduates from high school, he indicated that he was definitely more interested in the school now that he had gotten the chance to experience Chapel Hill, and a great learning environment on campus, for himself. He said that he was really enjoying the Workshop thus far and had, “learned a lot,” from his instructors, who, he said, “[brought] a variety of perspectives,” to the table.

Raustol and his fellow workshop participants can be heard in jazz combo performances Friday, June 24 at 3 p.m. at Moeser Auditorium in Hill Hall.

The night starts with Stephen Anderson locking eyes with the audience and ripping his mask off with a childish grin. This comedic bit sets the tone of the musical improvisation soon to follow. The lights dim and the band dives into a bombastic opening. After a few minutes of playing in unison, the Marimba player Juan Álamo, takes the lead with an invigorating solo. Veins pop from his neck and his face contorts with the beat. The other members follow suit.

The 360° Jazz Initiative, a faculty and student ensemble, kicks off the week-long UNC Summer Jazz Workshop. Beginning on June 20th, students and players from across North Carolina and the world convene. The glue that holds them together? The language they all speak? Jazz.

This language is best listened to live. The audience locks eyes on the musicians moving to the beat. The players’ faces are marked with expression.

While students study Jazz history and learn theory, the Jazz workshop looks to the future just as much as it learns from the past. On many occasions, the 360° Jazz initiative played contemporary pieces drawn from the arsenal of its homegrown talent. A showcase of young talent and new compositions increased the lively and engaging nature of the show. While Jazz is written in the history books, it is played, experienced, and evolving this week at the UNC Summer Jazz Workshop.

It was a temperate June evening in Chapel Hill. The opening tune began shortly after 7 p.m.

But, starting well before then, Moeser Auditorium (at Hill Hall) was abuzz with the students, faculty, and guests of the UNC Summer Jazz Workshop. The 360ᵒ Jazz Initiative CD Release Concert featured a varied cast of performers from UNC’s professoriate and from around the world.

The evening’s setlist, comprised of seven tunes, was chosen entirely from the 360ᵒ Jazz Initiative’s newly recorded album, “Please Only Tell Me Good News.”

The group’s tunes featured influences from a variety of cultures and styles. For example, Rahsaan Barber’s instrumental composition, “Latindia,” was written with the mixture of Latin jazz and traditional Indian styles in mind that the portmanteau suggests. Ramunė Marcinkevičiūtė sung a song titled, “Adversities,” that had the rhythm of what you might think of as a typical American lounge jazz track, but with lyrics entirely in Lithuanian. Such was the scope of sounds enjoyed last night.

The evening’s performers were as follows:

• Ramunė Marcinkevičiūtė and Emma Gonzalez provided vocals for one song each.
• Rachel Therrien played trumpet, soloing brilliantly throughout the concert.
• Rahsaan Barber was on sax, and likewise impressed the audience with solos on multiple tunes.
• Alex Upton, a student who has competed on his instrument nationally, played the alto sax.
• Jerald Shynett was on trombone, bringing great power to the stage.
• Stephen Anderson, director of the Workshop, amazed on the piano.
• Baron Tymas provided guitar, in a very subdued-yet-essential manner.
• Juan Alamo played a variety of percussion instruments and the marimba.
• Jason Foureman played bass, and was afforded a chance to solo which he did not waste.
• Dan Davis offered a sometimes-steady and often-emphatic beat on his drum set, with one particularly notable solo.

When all was said and done, circa 8:45 p.m., the ensemble received a standing ovation.

The Workshop will be hosting a public performance each night this week.

 

I confess, I’m not as knowledgeable about music theory as I’d like to be. I need it broken down into something more digestible. 

That’s exactly what Dan Davis, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, did for me. He compares jazz to cooking: each alteration of a chord is like a new spice to add to the dish.

Maybe the G the guitarist is playing seems a little boring. Maybe it’s not changing enough from phrase to phrase. The solution is brilliantly simple: change the chord a little. For a guitarist, this is as easy as moving a single finger. If the stress on the note isn’t quite right, they can move the 7th, for example, of a G major 7, to a different string. 

This sounds intimidatingly complex — or at least it did to me — before having it explained. Really, it boils down to making the chords more flavorful. 

That’s what jazz is all about. The Jazz Initiative CD Release concert at UNC’s Hill Hall exemplifies this. Each musician following the same recipe, adding a dash of their own flavor. A 7th here, an extra 9th or 13th here, and you have an exceptional dish — even for someone with a palette as inexperienced as my own.

Next time you hear jazz, listen to the soloist closely. It’s a chef’s opportunity to add his own flair. Whether it’s something spicy, mellow, or a little bitter-sweet, it’s sure to knock your socks off. 

Even more impressive: that jazz solo you just listened to (or are about to) is improvised. That musician looked around the kitchen, found a few ingredients they liked, and threw it into the pot. No solo is the same. The dish you get the first time you hear a jazz group live most likely won’t sound the same when you hear them next. It’s an innovative art form. It grows with the artist and the listener.

So go, try a new jazz group. Try two. You’ll be surprised every time.

On Monday, June 20th, I attended a summer jazz workshop concert. Every night till Friday 24th there will be a concert to attend with Friday being an exception of having the concert in the afternoon. Monday’s concert was one of the first of the series I will be attending. The 360ᵒ Jazz Initiative performed Monday’s concert. This was a concert to also promote the release of their CD, which contains some tracks played from the concert.

The 360ᵒ Jazz Initiative group contained:

• Rachel Therrien playing the trumpet.
• Rahsaan Barber and Alex Upton playing the sax.
• Jerald Shynette playing the trombone.
• Stephen Anderson playing the piano.
• Baron Tymas playing the guitar.
• Juan Alamo playing percussion.
• Jason Foureman playing bass.
• Dan Davis playing the drums.

Entering the venue, you can see it is full of people eagerly waiting to watch the performers. From the beginning, you see the passion coming from every performer. The opening piece was very explosive, with sounds reaching throughout the venue. I have attended student concerts in the past, but never a concert with true professionals. There is a big difference in sound and the output that comes out of their instruments.

I was sitting towards the back end of the venue, but the sound reaching me was full and enough to shake my body. Even as a beginner in jazz music, I could tell that the group played like a well-oiled machine and that the experience and technique I witnessed would be something that I could not achieve in my lifetime.

Throughout the concert, I thoroughly enjoyed that Dr. Anderson gave some background to every piece they played. This gave the audience a greater sense of meaning why the piece sounded as it was supposed to be.

The concert consisted of pieces that were played, not all by one artist, but it consisted of different pieces from different artists in the group. The concert also had guest student appearances that consisted of pieces that they composed as well.

This made the concert very unique for me as I heard various styles of how jazz music could be represented and heard. This incredible experience makes me look forward to the next great concert in this series.

The Summer Jazz Workshop hosted its first concert last night in Moeser Auditorium, it was a CD release for the 360 Band Initiative. The performers consisted of UNC music department professors and faculty, previous and current UNC students, a NCCU professor, and Canadian Jazz trumpeter Rachel Therrien.

The rest of the instrumentation was as follows:

• Stephen Anderson was on the piano
• Juan Alamo on the marimba and playing percussion
• Dan Davis on drums
• Rahsaan Barber on the saxophone
• Alex Upton on alto saxophone
• Jerald Shynette on trombone
• Jason Foureman on bass
• Baron Tymas on the guitar
• Vocals by Ramune Marcinkevičiūtė and Emma Gonzales

There were eight compositions performed, including originals by Stephen Anderson, Rahsaan Barber, a previous UNC student, and Alex Upton.

Having previously attended Jazz concerts at UNC, it felt quite familiar, but nonetheless intriguing. As the concert began, I could honestly say that the performers looked as though they belonged together and as the concert continued their enthusiasm towards each other made me enjoy the concert even more. Their stage presence radiated onto the audience and made me want to join them.

Something else I enjoyed was the versatility of the compositions. Specifically I appreciated listening to the third composition with the first vocalist, Ramune, because it was slow and contained soft melodies. I found myself entranced by the way she sang, the way in which her voice would combine so well with the instrumentation made it fascinating to hear.

I also was amused by the sixth composition by Rahsaan Barber because of what I believe was Latin-infused adoptions. It was entertaining to watch Juan Alamo and the guest drummer improvise together and to see Rachel and Rahsaan begin to dance a bit. They danced because that’s how their body was responding to the music, and I think as an audience it uplifted our energy.

As someone who doesn’t listen to jazz, I love how simply watching the performers have a good time has given me an appreciation for the genre. Throughout the entire concert the compositions gave me an airy and fluttery feeling within myself that urged me to nod my head or tap my foot, and also left me captivated by the unsuspecting tempo changes, rhythm changes, etc. Despite not being well-educated on Jazz music and techniques I loved being able to enjoy the concert and am excited for the next one.

The UNC Summer Jazz Workshop ran for five days this June and invited students, the community, and high schoolers to come to learn about jazz in all-day sessions, culminating in faculty and students’ performances. These are some of my takeaways as a newcomer to all things musical.

1. There are a lot of men in jazz. (like a lot of them)

On my first day of UNC’s summer Jazz Workshop I walked up to Kenan Music Building expecting a similar makeup of my other summer classes – UNC has a female population of nearly 60% and it is usually evident in the classroom, but I was fairly surprised to see a line of mostly men signing in. My journalism track classes were gender-wise more even, and I was glad to find company there, but when I went to observe combo groups I noticed the gender gap and it didn’t make a lot of sense to me: a female majority school holds a one-week Jazz Summer Intensive full of extremely inviting an engaging professors willing to teach students of all abilities – seems like a great deal for anyone even vaguely interested in jazz or music so I had to ask myself why aren’t more women participating in this? Doing some digging online I found that an article in NPR reported that not only do women still comprise a minuscule amount of personnel on jazz albums, but they also find that even in categories where numbers have improved “critical recognition is disproportionately limited to a small group of exceptional women” which I suppose is a working definition of tokenism. The point here is that while I, a woman, had a stellar experience and recommend it to any and all, it seems like some systemic inequities within the genre need to be addressed so that other women can enjoy the experience as I did.

2. Jazz can be an accessible art form if you let it be

A major misconception I had of jazz, and I suspect that others may have, is that jazz is one of those art forms in the echelon of operas, classic poetry, and arthouse movies that is simply too highbrow for the average joe. I personally was a little intimidated to come into this workshop having only ever listened to Ella Fitzgerald and maybe a Louis Armstrong song or two in a movie soundtrack and figured that I may just not ‘get it’ when I got here and started listening. It turns out that is not true. In the jazz history course I took, I learned that jazz is not a monolith, and the more avant-garde and smooth jazz styles that I had associated specifically with jazz are only parts of jazz music. Learning the timeline of the popularity of jazz was helpful to me because jazz like big band and swing were some of the most popular forms because they were very accessible to the public and certain other forms that were considered more artistic were not necessarily for dancing and not nearly as popular, which makes me feel better about having my preferences. A major takeaway is that I do like jazz, I like fusion jazz, swing, other, more danceable types, and the association of jazz with only the most highbrow purely improvisational styles is a misconception I am glad to have corrected.

3. Music has languages

One of the first things we learn in jazz history and music skills class is that jazz is a language / has its own language. I grew up in a K-12 private school where a few of my friends did classical training of violin, cello, flute, piano, etc and performed in orchestras outside of school. Watching these made me think music was a very stiff thing to learn and practice, and the precision with which my musical friends learned to play seemed uptight. The language of this classical music seemed very precise, refined, and geared toward mastery. Listening to the professors and daily guest lecturers and performers in the summer jazz camp, it seemed like a lot of that is thrown out the window. While classical training seems structured, jazz seems to be more about a feel than technical mastery. In addition, no music teacher I have ever met talks like the jazz professors. The teachers seem to gesture and hum their way through explanations in a language of their own and somehow the class just gets it and goes along. I have to say I do not understand most of it but I did enjoy watching it. There is an entertainment value there and a lack of formality that makes learning an inviting thing.

4. It is illegal to play “Stairway to Heaven” in a guitar store

I am pretty sure this is a joke, but for some reason, all the musicians know it. Maybe it seems unimportant but I think it points out an example of community that the musicians participating in this workshop share and seems to me to be a part of insider non-formal knowledge of music that I have been trying to get in on. To be transparent, my secret reason for joining this workshop was to find somebody who knows somebody to teach me, a disabled kid, guitar. It seemed to be a good way to do this would be to break into the music circles here and get some of the music knowledge that I lack – which is all of it. The Stairway to Heaven ‘ban’ isn’t the most important thing I learned but it did confirm my experience that as a disabled person, it is kind of hard to get into music, to get lessons, and gain that knowledge. However, I know that even though I haven’t yet achieved my super-secret summer jazz workshop goal of hoodwinking somebody into teaching guitar to me, I have figured out that the UNC music department is a welcoming bunch, which is an encouraging start.

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.

 

With this year’s UNC Summer Jazz Workshop soon coming to a close, I wanted to take this time to reflect on the most memorable aspects of the week. It was a fun and exciting experience that I would recommend to enthusiasts and newcomers to jazz alike.

Here are my four main takeaways from my time at the workshop (in no particular order):

1. The professors and other staff are knowledgeable and enthusiastic

Professor Bechtel, Professor Davis, and Professor Anderson are all personable and genuine people who truly understand and care about the topics they cover. I’ve learned so much about the history and journalistic coverage of jazz in such a short time thanks to their experience.

On top of that, everyone who took part in the evening concerts brought such energy and talent that I’m grateful to have experienced live.

2. It’s great to work with other students interested in jazz

In my experience, fellow journalism and jazz history students are genuinely interested in the study of jazz and each bring their own unique perspectives to the table.

It was a frantic but fun experience to cover a concert live on Twitter and see how everyone else is reacting to the music in real time (check out this week’s posts using #UNCjazz).

I also enjoyed the opportunity to have one-on-one conversation with another student for our interview profile assignment (an example of which can be seen here: https://tarheels.live/uncjazz2021/2021/06/23/workshop-student-profile-austin-tyner/).

3. Jazz is personal and dynamic

I came into the workshop with some knowledge of jazz already, but being able to watch musicians interact, prepare, and perform live has made me appreciate the art form on another level.

One aspect of jazz that stands out among other genres is the element of improvisation. Despite all of their preparation, performers each get to leave their own mark on the music through solos.

Jazz is really about individuals and their ability to react to each other’s creativity in the moment.

4. Jazz is a rewarding process

Through sitting in on combo rehearsals and lessons, I’ve seen the hard work put in by jazz performers to learn and prepare directly.

Jazz is a complex musical medium that is challenging to master. However, the passion of the musicians always shines through, both in practice and performance, showing that they feel the effort is well worth it.