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The Lion's Roar

The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

The Official Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar

    Southeastern Jazz performance features Brooklyn saxophonist

    The Jazz Combos and the Jazz Ensemble II came together on stage to swing with Brooklyn’s Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson during the first of two jazz performances set to wrap up the semester.
    The performance was held on Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Pottle Auditorium. Dr. Richard Schwartz, instructor of saxophone and director of Jazz studies, both performed in and conducted the concert. The show was split into two parts, with the Combos performing first and the Ensemble second.
    “I like having them perform together so that they both have the opportunity to work with the guest artist, otherwise they wouldn’t,” said Schwartz. “The Combos are based off of Jazz improvisation, whereas with the Ensemble everything was written down.”
    Several Jazz pieces spanning the twentieth century were on the evening’s repertoire, including,  “Out of Nowhere” composed by Johnny Green, and recorded by Bing Crosby in 1931. According to Schwartz, tonight’s performance was very structured in terms of the order of the pieces that were performed.
    “I looked around at the beginning of the semester, and I tried to line things up with two swing tunes in the beginning followed by a Latin song and then a ballad,” said Schwartz. “The rest are kind of ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ at the end. Some of them are my personal favorites. For this particular concert, I wanted to do charts arranged by friends of mine, like Larry McKenna and Rick Long, whose wife is a friend of my mother.”
    Also, a student composition was performed, titled “A Fool for Johnny” written by Carter McFarland, a general studies senior, with a concentration in music.
    “It’s a song for the television show I’m trying to make about my life,” said McFarland.  “The song is about riding debauchery all the way to the bank. I’m not professional exactly, I just pretend to be, and so writing the song just kinda happened.”
    The guest artist for the performance, Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson is an alto saxophonist who has been playing jazz for the last 35 years.  Anderson has worked with several big names in Jazz, most notably trumpeter, composer and Jazz teacher Wynton Marsalis. Marsalis currently serves as the Artistic director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center in New York City.
    “I’m originally from Brooklyn, but my wife is from Baton Rouge, so I’ve been living there for the past 25 years. My son, Wes Anderson IV, plays in the Band here, and he told everyone that ‘you need to get my Dad to comedown here and play.'” Also, I know the band director, so it just kind hooked up that way.”
    Anderson was very impressed with the bands as well as McFarland’s composition.
    “I think it was great, it sounded like Jazz music. A lot of people can compose and it sounds like something else; this sounded like Jazz music. It had the type form that was something you like to play on, and it still sounds like a great tune even when you’re not playing it. When kids are composing, they need to make sure that what they’re making sounds like Jazz music, something that makes you want to swing.”
    Anderson thinks that the future of Jazz is in good hands, but keeping the traditions of the genre is daunting and intimidates many young musicians.
    “People think that Jazz music is going out of existence,” said Anderson. “All you got to do is bring somebody in to rehearse for a couple of hours and give them the confidence to play it. What happens is that people just don’t have confidence that they can play it.”
    The Jazz Ensemble I will take Pottle’s stage on Nov. 28 at 7:30 p.m. for the last Jazz show of the semester. More information on musical and dramatic performances can be found on the Department of Find and Performing arts webpage.
     

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