Kira Budge
The Paw Print
On Thursday, April 11, the Adams State Jazz Band performed in their last concert of the school year, which went off without a hitch. Directed by Dr. Luttrell, standing in for Mr. Doyle, who is on sabbatical this semester, the concert covered a series of jazz hits and styles across the ages. The concert was done in Richardson Hall, which had more room to work with and better acoustics than Leon would have.
The concert began with a small group of soloists, some of which were featured throughout the rest of the concert. They performed “Black and Blue” by Fats Waller, which was a nice easy introduction to the concert. Then the entire band came in for “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael. The band included saxophones, trombones, trumpets, a couple of flutes, and a rhythm section with a guitar, bassist, drummer, and pianist, and proved itself quite gifted. Unfortunately, the band’s gifted vocalist, Angela Prentiss, was ill and thus the pieces had to be completed without her, thus removing a dimension from the performance. Nonetheless, the Jazz Band continued forward with style, with some intermediary performing by Dr. Luttrell.
After “Georgia on My Mind,” the band performed one of the hit pieces of the night, “Blues in Hoss’s Flat” by Frank Foster, which was a true toe-tapper with feeling, really pulling the audience into the concert. They followed this with “Come Fly With Me” by James van Heusen. After an intermission, the program moved into some more modern jazz pieces with another smaller group playing “Mine is Yours” by Bob Mintzer. This was followed by the highlight of the night: “Channel One Suite” by Bill Reddie.
“Channel One Suite”, which comprised the entire band, had a more movie-score feel, passionate and strong. The musicians showed off their true talent and capacity for musicianship in this piece. The ultimate feature was in Josh Wohlrabe’s performance on the drumset. Wohlrabe had a long solo combined with other intermittent solos and a general foundation for the piece as a whole with his percussion. “Channel One Suite” is an extremely difficult piece for the drumset, and Wohlrabe took the audience’s breath away with his completion of it. He proved his talent fourscore. Wohlrabe’s senior percussion recital also occurred on Sunday, April 14.
“Channel One Suite” ended the concert with great feeling, and did the Jazz Band and Music Department as a whole proud. Other highlighted soloists throughout the program were Danielle Rady on clarinet, Jon Colson and Shane Hagan on trumpet, Ash Hodge and Bryce White on trombone, Caleb Braun on piano, Jayson Render on guitar, Jordan Barney on bass, Kayla Hunt on alto saxophone, and Alyssa Davis on tenor saxophone.
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