Jazz Combo premiers composition

“Rip, Rag, & Panic: Seven Contrafacts for Septet,” the spring Jazz Combo Concert will come to the Max Noah Recital Hall stage at Georgia College & State University, Thursday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Dr. Ross Feller, GC&SU assistant professor of music, composed the show, which will feature sounds from a variety of jazz styles.
“This semester’s Jazz Combo students inspired me to write ‘Rip, Rag, and Panic: Seven Contrafacts for Septet,’” Feller said. “Contrafacts are new jazz tunes based upon pre-existing chord changes, usually from well- known standards. I took the idea of the contrafact and applied it to many additional areas.”
The seven movements in the composition are titled, “Blue R,” “Giant Steps on Mars,” “Alabama Breeze,” “Exotic Polka Night,” “New Bridge,” “Klezville” and “Long Road.”
The first movement, “Blue R,” refers to a composition by Rahsaan Roland Kirk entitled “Blue Roi.” The R stands for Rahsaan and Roland. “Giant Steps on Mars” references a famous tune by John Coltrane, using part of the melody and various licks from his solo in a minimalist fashion. Additionally, the basic rhythmic pattern of the “Mars” movement is from Gustav Holst’s, “The Planets.”
“Alabama Breeze” is based upon Scott Joplin’s march and two-step entitled, “A Breeze from Alabama.” “Exotic Polka Night” harvests recognizable chunks from Dizzy Gillespie’s, “A Night in Tunisia” and submits them to polka treatment. “New Bridge” is a revision of an original composition Feller wrote entitled, “The Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” which he composed immediately after hearing of the death of Frank Zappa.
” There are stylistic contrafacts from Zappa’s work, as well as from the Zappa-inspired, British band known as Henry Cow,” Feller said.
“Klezville” is based upon several klezmer standards including “Chosn Kalah,” “Varshaver Freylekhs” and the Freygish scale study. The last movement, “Long Road,” was inspired by the last four words in Paul McCartney’s, “The Long and Winding Road,” and also includes several of Yusef Lateef’s interpolations of Eric Dolphy’s synthetic formations.
The Jazz Combo ensemble is famous for bringing something new and exciting to the stage with every program.
“Every Jazz Combo concert is different from the last,” Feller said. “Every concert is programmed according to a theme or musical concept. For this one we are presenting a chamber-jazz ensemble performing the premiere of an original composition specially composed for this ensemble. This makes it a very special, unusual event.”
The Jazz Combo students have been working on the show since the beginning of January. The ensemble is open to all students, not strictly music majors. Feller said that he is always looking for new members who are interested in exploring the many facets of jazz within a small ensemble setting.
Feller encourages everyone to attend the show.
“In the past, audiences for the Jazz Combo shows have been made up of music students, non-music students, music faculty, non-music faculty, administrators, grounds keepers, plant operations’ people, and non-university connected people, all ages, shapes and sizes,” Feller said.
The show has no admission charge and is sponsored by the GC&SU Music and Theatre Department.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 9 2004. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry