Jazz Essay

My Experiences Listening to a Live Performance of Christian McBride Big Band.

I have never been in a jazz club before. I always wanted to attend a live performance of American jazz musicians and learn more about the history of jazz. It was one of the reasons I chose this class in the first place. From my perspective, I view jazz together with classical instrumental music as elegant and exclusive. I associate it with luxurious restaurants, theaters, places like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, where people with great taste and deep understanding of music come to enjoy performances and celebrate important moments in their life. For my final paper I had an opportunity to visit the famous Village Vanguard jazz club on January 12th, 2014. Christian McBride Big Band was performing that day and it was interesting and new to me since I have not heard them before. The performance lasted for an hour and an half. To me it seemed to have ended too quickly and only seven pieces were played. I listened to Getting’ to It, Optimism, Science Fiction, Black Narcissist, and Shake and Blake. Christian McBride’s wife Melissa Walker performed two songs: Upside Down and Ev’ry Time.

The first thing that caught my attention is that the club itself was seemingly small for such a band, which consisted, as I counted, of sixteen musicians and one vocalist. I think the band took up a little less than half of the whole Village Vanguard’s room. I was sitting in the second row, which was pretty much in the middle of the room. When everyone in the band started to play, to me it sounded a little too loud for such a small space. Since I sat close enough to the band I could see that some musicians switched between two instruments instead of using only one. For ins...

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... my feet to it), but more laid-back and cooler than Fitzgerald does. In my opinion, Walker’s songs are longer and their content is more developed than Fitzgerald’s. Even though Melissa Walker’s songs were happy and inspiring in their context, they did not sound as catchy or dance-like as when Ella Fitzgerald sang.

In general I think that Christian’s McBride Big Band jazz is very accessible, positive, energetic, flowing and resonant music. It is also brassy because many wind instruments are used such as trombones, trumpets, and saxophones. This performance made my day. I was really moved by the positive and energetic music, and it made me hungry for more live jazz. I would love to come again and listen to Ron Blake. His style reminds me of John Coltrane or Joe Henderson, but Blake plays it at a more relaxed tempo and to me it feels like my soul sings with the music.