This week KBIA’s arts and culture segment producer Jenn Cooper hung out with the Columbia Jazz Jam group to explore Columbia’s Jazz scene during April’s Jazz Appreciation Month.
UNESCO celebrates International Jazz day on April 30th.
The Jazz Jam group meets on the second Tuesday of each month as part of the Jazz Jam series, headed by Andrew Sieff. He said he’s been playing the drums for, “quite a few decades.”
The group performed in Columbia on Café Berlin’s small stage.
Sieff and guitarist, Ethan Moll, arrived forty-five minutes early to set up their equipment. Sieff put together his drum set while Moll helped set up the microphones and his guitar.
A handful of people in the audience enjoyed their drinks. One table worked on a puzzle. A few just enjoyed the music. Most were there to jam.
The core group played for about an hour before inviting jammers up to join the group.
Sieff said the jam session isn’t an open mic night. He said, they don’t have to be really good players, but players should understand the basics of jazz before performing with the group.
Sieff called for another horn player before starting the jam session. The musicians discussed their ‘game plan’ before they began performing. Among them, a saxophonist, clarinetist, guitarist, singer and bassist.
Before joining the group, Kerry Cordray used cork grease to lubricate the cork on his mouth piece for his saxophone. He explained the process, “There’s a big wraparound of cork on this tube that the mouthpiece sits over and to make it so it slides easily. You use something called cork grease to sort of lube it up. So that way you don’t tear up the cork with your mouthpiece when you take it on and off.”
By 10 p.m. the small stage could hardly accommodate the musicians on stage performing in rhythmic harmony.
Moll said his favorite part about performing is each person has a solo.
He said, “It’s so cool to be in a group where every time you play you’re getting to get featured. You also get to help support other people. So, you play all these different roles and get to really test yourself for any scenario because you never know what somebody’s going to do.”
Josh Chittum is the assistant director at the We Always Swing Jazz Series on North Tenth Street. He said, “Jazz has a timeline of, at this point, approaching a hundred years. There’s a lot of things that happen in there, so just because you didn’t like this one particular part doesn’t mean you won’t like the other ones. Don’t be intimidated by jazz, just give it a try.”
Sieff said jazz is not one size fits all, each person can tailor their jazz experience. He says with time, anyone can find a different branch of jazz to enjoy. He said, “The elements of music are very sophisticated and there are also many different streams of jazz and sometimes people have difficulty appreciating a certain stream of it. With a little bit of patience you can always find something that you really can relate to in jazz music.”
One thing the Jazz Jam musicians agree on, Columbia’s jazz scene is growing. And it’s not hard to find, if you look in the right places.
Cordray, who has been playing the clarinet for close to 45 years, said Jazz Jam is great for those who like to listen to and perform jazz music. He said, "Columbians, probably are used to saying and hearing that they’ve got such an incredible scene for the size of the city that they are and jazz is a prime example of that.”
To celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month, We Always Swing Jazz Series is hosting events through the rest of April to celebrate jazz, including a special performance house concert featuring Bruce Barth and Anat Cohen on April 18th.
Click here to find out about more events.
The Columbia Jazz Orchestra plays at Broadway Brewery on the last Monday of every month, starting at 8:30 p.m. The group is comprised of community members who have experience performing jazz music.
