On August 2016, Ohio University hosted a Jazz Café performance from 7.00 pm to 9.00 pm. The concert was primarily a showcase for the alumni who had graduated with a music degree from the university, and students pursuing music as a major. Held at the Freedom Concert Hall, the concert featured a number of blossoming musicians and a collection of unique musical combos. In my view, this concert was the worst occasion to witness different kinds of music, which for a novice Jazz listener like me was unacceptable.
While this concert had some bad things to report about, the worst of them all was the addition of new duos. There is a specific reason which makes me find this addition intolerable. It is because the addition of the duos made it a lot harder to not only hear but also analyze the music. The first song I heard was performed by the duo on the piano. The moment it began, I picked up a few familiar sounds. For example, there was a right-left hand melody played by the duo, which gave the song an unwelcoming sound.
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The performance that followed was a duet with tenor sax and a piano. This was one of the worst performances during the night for various reasons; it had a strong emphasis on the response and call or the aspect of antiphony, especially at its beginning. It also had a mysterious and eerie sound due to the application of minor keys. I noticed that the use of notes and minor keys produced clashing sounds on some occasions during the performance.
In the duet performance, I noticed pieces and bits of each instrument put into use, both in the sax and the piano. The saxophone somewhat seemed to apply repetition of arpeggios as the most predominant technique. The piano, on the other hand, seemed to pick up strong with the progress of the concert, then die down again, making the performance to involve a lot of edgy sounds. It was clear from what I observed on the faces of the performers that they must have gone off-course. Wherever the discord originated from is debatable. However, one thing is certain. It either came from the saxophonist or the pianist, but each of them gave the other a blameful eye may be as a form of disassociating the self from the problem. This however, did not solve it as the edgy sound continued.
The next performance involved a duet performing in accompaniment with a tenor saxophone and a trumpet. The song began slowly, but never really picked up. The tenor sax started with the trumpet following closely. The combination of the slow-picking song and the pattern accompanied by the trumpet and the tenor sax gave the music a real melancholy feel. There are two reasons for this observation. First, the sound of the music was depressing at its best. Secondly, the pattern followed by the trumpet and the tenor sax made the music to overlap, making it get higher and higher with its progress.
‘’ I heard it through the grapevine’’, a song title by Marvin Gaye, was performed by the duet in between a piano and a bass. The bass began with strong plucks as an emphasis on melody. The bass got a little rougher than the piano kicked in. The bassist played chords 1 and 3 with his right hands while using 4/4 time on the left. The technique applied in this piece of music gave it an assumption that it had a touch of soul and blues genre of music, which it lacked. Listening to its repealed bass lines, commonly known as Ostinato, and its beats make one’s head to wonder and inquire more about the intention of the music as opposed to nodding to it. Towards the end, the pianist began to take charge through the use of right hands cords. He began to freestyle, using the same hand, repeating various scales and notes in the process. This resulted in the piano using bottom chords and producing fast scales, making the music more disjointed. Towards the end, the piano began to soften as the melody faded away as an instance of the ritardando technique which involves a gradual decrease in tempo.
Despite the poor manner in which the concert was performed, there are few things which I realized to be positive about it. First, it gave me the opportunity to observe firsthand how unique musical combos such as the tenor sax, the trumpet, and the piano can be used to produce musical pieces of low quality as the ones performed in the concert. This serves as a benchmark of knowing how and when to apply them, depending on the purpose and intention of the music. Secondly, the application of the ritardando technique towards the end of the music gave it a reprieve, as even attendees like me who found the entire concert boring, got in the mood to appreciate the connection between the fading music and the gradually decreasing tempo.
Ultimately, the concert had both its good and bad sides. On the one hand, the music pieces performed lacked the quality expected of them in such a concert. The reasons range from the discord created by either the saxophonist or the pianist, to improper application of musical keys and tones as in the case of the bassist. On the other hand, the concert was a perfect avenue to learn firsthand the problems most likely to result from musical mistakes.
