Wyatt Smith
Features Editor
The College of Wooster’s Music Department is putting on a jazz concert tonight at 7:30 p.m. in McGaw Chapel. The performance will feature professional soloist Dave Sterner, an alto saxophonist from the Cleveland area.
Sterner has won multiple awards for his musical prowess and performed with the likes of Tony Bennett and Aretha Franklin. He currently serves as a part-time professor at Cuyahoga Community College and Lakeland Community College.
”He’s one of the finest jazz players in the area,” said Jeffrey Lindberg, professor of music and director of Wooster’s jazz ensemble.
Tonight’s concert will feature a range of jazz styles from classics by Duke Ellington and Count Basie to modern bebop. Many of the songs — more commonly referred to as charts or tunes by jazz players — were selected to spotlight Sterner’s ability as a soloist.
“All of the charts are really hip and will easily engage the crowd,” said second trumpet Jake Boca ’14.
“We’ll also play some pieces that have a lot of student improv as well,” added first tenor saxophone Billy Smolen ’17. “It’ll be interesting to see how we all stack up to a pro sax player.”
Wooster’s jazz ensemble is an audition-only group in the style of ‘big bands,’ a format popularized during the interwar period. As in any big band, the ensemble usually contains 17 instruments: five saxophones, four trombones, four trumpets and a rhythm section consisting of a guitar, bass, piano and drums. Students receive .125 class credits per semester for their participation.
“I love being a member of the jazz ensemble,” said Boca. “Playing jazz is such a unique and exhilarating experience, and it’s wonderful to share that experience with friends in the ensemble. Unlike many other types of music, jazz is largely based on on-the-fly improvisation and cooperation amongst members of the group.
It’s all about listening, conversing, and reacting to one another. The group dynamic that is created is essential to producing a quality sound that both the performers and the audience will enjoy.”
The college’s jazz program also boasts two smaller groups called jazz combos, both of which will perform tonight, as well.
“The jazz combos tend to emphasize improvisation,” Lindberg explained, “while the jazz ensemble performs music that is for the most part written out for each player… the combos usually perform using just rough sketches of melodies and harmonic progressions.”
The groups only had a few weeks to prepare for the concert. The jazz ensemble used to put on only one performance during fall semester, but for the past two years they have teamed up with the Wooster Symphony Orchestra to present a joint concert in the early fall.
Despite the time constraints created by this added commitment, the musicians feel ready.
“The band is playing as if we’ve been reading [the music] for months,” assured Boca ’14.
Lindberg partially attributes the ensemble’s quick learning to a crop of talented first-years, who make up a disproportionate percentage of the group.
“[Concerts are] a little scary, being out there and seeing hundreds and hundreds of people,” said Smolen ’17, one of Lindberg’s skilled newcomers, “but it’s really exciting at the same time.”