Merritt Holloway, music major, is a third year student at CSUB and was the pianist for several numbers with the CSUB Small Jazz Ensemble at the CSUB Jazz Coffeehouse event on May 24 in the CSUB Music Building.
By Crismat Mateo
Photographer
Is there anything better than to spend your Saturday night listening to fine jazz music? On Saturday, May 24, 2014, friends and family of CSUB jazz ensemble members gathered inside the Music building room 127 to listen to their loved ones perform original compositions and classic jazz music during the Jazz Coffeehouse event under the direction of Dr. John Davis.
The show opened with traditional jazz music. The ensemble played tunes like “Yes or No” and “Pin Up House.”
After the traditional pieces, “modern, more exploratory compositions,” Tony Rinaldi says, were played. Among these modern pieces was a composition by a CSUB student, Joe Johnson, entitled “Waiting on What.” This audibly vivid piece featured Johnson on the piano.
As the night went on, more student compositions were showcased. Jay Smith, a CSUB music student, performed two compositions including “Solitary,” which was a crowd favorite. Additionally, Alejandro Arvizu was able to showcase two of his masterpieces that night.
The first was a beautiful love song called “The Rest of Our Lives” while the second one was a “fun song that combines my name and our bassist’s name,” Arvizu says, “Ale-Dan-Dro” a combination of Alejandro and James Dandy, bassist. Both songs featured Arvizu on the trumpet.
John Luevano, music major, was one of the saxophone players to perform with the CSUB Small Jazz Ensemble at the CSUB Jazz Coffeehouse event on May 24 in the CSUB Music Building.
Jazz Coffeehouse closed with compositions by “the newest member of the band,” Dr. Davis says, Tony Rinaldi and two cover songs. As he gets on to play the piano, Rinaldi says “this first song commemorates our very own Dr. Davis because this is a phrase that he tends to use often during a conversation–‘As It Were.'” Another Rinaldi original, ”Fountain Mountain”, followed this song. The final two songs of the show were tributes to two great jazz artists. The ensemble took on Geoffrey Keezer. Finally, they performed Chick Corea’s “Morning Sprite.”
After the show, Dr. Davis thanks everyone for coming and sends them off with “see you soon!” When asked why there are no vocalists with the ensemble, he says, “there are semesters when we get some vocalists and some semesters that we don’t; this is one of the semesters that we didn’t get a vocalist enroll into the class.” Therefore, the Small Jazz Ensemble class, MUSC 236 and 436, is offered every spring for anyone interested in learning about, or simply playing, jazz music.
Dr. Davis also says, “I like having talented students and stretching them and their abilities so that when they get out of this class, they have grown as musicians.”
