Jazz band gets ‘Funkadelic’ with latest performance, new faces

The GCSU Jazz Band recently held its fall concert, giving performances Nov. 5 and 6.

According to Dr. Todd Shiver, director of bands and interim chair of the Music Department, he stumbled on the concert’s theme “Funkadelic” by accident.

“In the fall, we always feature new arrangements or new music, and in the spring, we do more traditional swing, big band jazz. So, basically, I just order a bunch of new music, and we read it and we pick what we like, and it just ended up that about 90 percent of the things that we had kept were funk style,” Shiver said.

The evening featured two performances by the Jazz Band’s new vocalist, Sarah Fender, and the concert’s guest artist, Miguel Castro. Castro is the director of percussion studies and Jazz Band at Middle Georgia College and a long-time friend of GCSU’s Jazz Band.

“At one point, I taught percussion here, just for a short time. So, I’ve been kind of on and off part of the family here,” Castro said, adding, “We’re glad to be here, just making music with the wonderful Jazz Band. It’s a great jazz program that has been going on here at Georgia College & State University. I’m very glad to be here.”

Junior Kyle Christmas, a tenor saxophonist with the band, said, “I think it was one of our best shows, actually.” Alto saxophonist David Cheek agreed with Christmas, adding that the concert was “one of the most technically challenging we’ve done in a while.”

“It’s a different kind of a jazz concert, with the funk theme,” said Shiver. “For the musicians, it’s actually a lot more challenging, because funk-style music is really rhythmic. It’s one of the reasons I got Miguel in to play the auxiliary percussion, because it’s just so rhythmic. And I can tell tonight that things hung together better because of him. They’ve got to really think. Their brains are really clicking up here. They can’t daydream, because they’ll miss something. So that was kind of the challenge of the concert, but I think the audience picked up on that, too.”

Before the concert, Shiver expressed a great deal of confidence in the Jazz Band as a whole, while specifically singling out two new performers for praise.

“Monique Williams graduated last year, and she’s been our drummer for four years, and I was worried about replacing her, and Sean (Workman) is doing a great job. And also Laura Dees was our vocalist for four years, and I got really used to hearing her sing. We actually had a campus-wide competition, we had twenty young ladies and gentlemen audition for the spot, and Sarah (Fender) got it, and she’s doing a great job. So, yeah, I feel real good. I was a little worried, but we found good replacements.”

Shiver urged GCSU students to attend Jazz Band concerts, saying that he felt that the band’s members performed better when their peers were in the audience.

And for those students who didn’t attend, Shiver had a recommendation.

“Hey, you missed it, you need to come next time.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 13 2009. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry