The Night Of Jazz Essay, Research Paper

My Night of Jazz

Before I arrived at the Regatta Bar, I had no idea what to expect. To be completely honest, I was a bit hesitant going out on the town to listen to jazz. It’s true that we listen to jazz every Monday and Wednesday in class, but the thought of sitting around jazz enthusiasts was intimidating. I felt like I wouldn’t belong, as if I wasn’t going to be qualified enough to be in their presence. However, everything changed after I stepped over the threshold to the Regatta. I quickly realized that it has nothing to do with being qualified or even experienced enough to listen to jazz. It does however, have to do with being appreciative of the type of music that you’re listening to, one that is required for listening to any type of music. I wasn’t even aware that I possessed appreciation for any type of music outside my CD collection.

The atmosphere within the Regatta Bar was one that put any fears that I had at ease. The bar was located upstairs in the Charles Hotel, located in Cambridge. There were round tables set up everywhere, some of which looked out over Harvard Square through a large glass window. The only lighting came from the floor stage where the band played.

The band, “The Charlie Kolohase Quintet”, consisted of five members. They performed a number of songs, many of which I really enjoyed. The group played a song titled, “Pig Pile”, with what I believe to be a muted trumpet slowly playing the lead. The drums soon joined in accompanied by the symbols. The tempo seemed to turn moderate when the bass and the saxophone played, and even faster when the soprano sax and the trumpet played together. The music sounded like it was all over the place while maintaining a consistent pattern.

The band also performed a song titled, “To her Ladyships”, which was originally done by Billy Frasier of the Dizzie Galespi Big Band. It sounded like the song had a meter of four and a tempo that remained slow throughout it. The alto sax, bass, and the drums were the instruments that started to play first. The next instrument to follow was the trumpet until it was the only brass instrument playing. The band members seemed to take turns playing solo parts on their instruments, which gave the song a rather somber setting.

The next song that the band performed was Elino Hope’s “One Second Please”. The song began with the saxophone, but was quickly replaced by the baritone sax. The song had a meter of four and tempo that varied between moderate and fast. At one point in the song the trumpet player improvised on a solo only to lead into an alto sax solo with improvisation. There were many solo sections performed in this song, but they all sounded fairly similar to me.

After the intermission, the band performed “Doom in Years”. This song was personally my favorite. It had a lot of things going on at once. It began with the trumpet, bass, and drums. The trumpet player then did some improvisation that seemed to calm some of the action down. The saxophone followed the trumpet until the trumpet soloed again. I then heard what seemed to be a whistling saxophone. It sounded strong and then weak, almost as if it were a person having trouble breathing. All the instruments started playing again only to be stopped by a saxophone solo accompanied by the bass and the drums. There seemed to be no order to the notes played during the solos. That was the main reason why I enjoyed this particular song so much.

All in all I would have to say that I really took pleasure from my night of jazz listening. It is so easy to get caught up in the music that you find yourself having a terrific time when you expected not to. At least that’s what happened in my case. I walked in the Regatta bar feeling as if I didn’t belong, but I walked out with the knowledge that I didn’t have to. I was just there to listen to some jazz music