Jazz Concert Experience

In my personal experience in an attending a jazz concert in San Antonio I can say I really had a memorable experience. My jazz concert had taken place on September 27th at the Esquire Tavern in downtown San Antonio at the 3pm. The band that was performing was called the Doc Watkins Trio in which I later found out was a branch of the South Texas Jazz. When I had finally arrived and soon later consulted with the musicians it came to my attention it wasn’t the actual band but musicians that do perform for South Texas Jazz. I was not quite sure on how it worked but was told the “actual band” plays here but they rotate on Sundays. During my experience I was able to identify many things about them and enjoy a nice lunch with my mother while listening

to the band play blues and jazz standards.
Earlier, when walking in I right away I could identify the instruments being played the piano, upright bass, and the saxophone.

My mother and I had sat down an order some appetizers and we continued listening to the music. It was very peaceful with the music playing and the atmosphere. As I cotinued to lisetning and watching them I could see they were very engaged in the rythem. They were not just playing but they were active in the music. You could tell they were very passionate about it. It was comforting sitting down and listening to the music. There were hardly any people there and I knew it was good chance to personally talk to the band members when they had an intermission. I had listened to three different songs before I spoke to them. “Beautiful Love”, “Misty” and You’d Be So Nice to Come Home to” I was able to gather this information when I was interviewing them. Misty was very soft and had a slow tiempo to it. While the other two were a faster tiempo with a louder volume to them but were not so overwhelming. The saxophone player was Pierre, a French name he told me. The upright bass player was Mike and Chris was on the piano. The songs that we had listened to were mainly jazz standards. The only vocals sang were by Pierre on “Misty”. The tone quality was easily distinguished throughout the songs. The piano was heavily involved in all three songs meaning order of the soloists Chris (piano), Mike, (upright bass), and Pierre

(saxophone).
At the same time I was able to gether some background information on the performers. Pierre is from New Orlenons and he went to school to study muisc. Began playing jazz because it was easy work hours and it worked with his schedule. He’s a fan of the Yellow Jackets and Stevie Wonder. Mike had some family musical background. His dad was a musican and also had many records inlcuidng jazz and classical muisc. He grew up listentig to music. Someone that Mike admires was Ray Charles. Lastly, Chris was interseting, he had no musical background and never went to school for it. When he was young he heard his first jazz record and he fell in love with it. He said, “It sounded fun, the style, the groove, its what drove me.” I assumed he was self taught. Chris had many msuicans he admired but listed some off the top of his head, Oscar petterson and Hancock Curbie.
In my first experience in attending a jazz event I can say it was a good one. The band members were very friendly and were very involved with my interview with them. I was able to gather the styles of the songs and instruments being played and with further investigation in speaking with musicians I was able to establish what songs they played.