Download - Downbeat

32 nd Annual
Jazz Combo Winners
Collective Alchemy
Playing jazz together can create some tight friendships. Take
trumpeter Nick Frenay and pianist Noah Kellman, who make
up the Manlius Pebble Hill Duo at Manlius Pebble Hill School
in DeWitt, N.Y. The pair—both of them graduating seniors this
spring—share a long history together and play a wide range of repertoire
from traditional jazz to contemporary. They also write and perform
their own compositions.
Both performed in the 2009 edition of the Grammy Jazz
Ensembles, and they have both been to the Dave Brubeck Institute, the
Vail Jazz Workshop, Berklee Summer Camp, Skidmore Jazz Camp
and the Central New York Summer Jazz Camp.
“Nick and Noah do a lot of listening and emulating of great jazz
musicians,” said their teacher, Joe Colombo. “In doing that, they have
developed an ear for the music.”
The two friends initiated the duo on their own. “My goal is to teach
the students to become independent learners, to take charge of their
own learning,” Colombo said. “As my students progress musically and
gain the proper skills to function as musicians, I take on the role as a
mentor.”
The Jazzschool (Berkeley, Calif.) Advanced Jazz Workshop has
won consistent DB accolades in recent years. This year’s group, under
the direction of Michael Zilber, included a lineup of trumpet, alto sax,
vibes, guitar, piano, bass and drums. Zilber said the group easily plays
at the level of a fine college ensemble, tackling original compositions,
modern jazz arrangements and reworked standards.
“The fundamental concepts I try to impart can be boiled down to
four things: listening, consciousness, reacting in the moment and
understanding,” Zilber said. “Rather than telling them to learn a bunch
of cool licks in all 12 keys and then plug them in over the appropriate
chords, I have them look at and examine why that Coltrane line
works, what is the underlying principle behind it. How can we connect
our ideas across harmonies, rather than just mindlessly sequencing
a line up a minor third because the chord goes up a minor third
Let’s make sure we understand what we are playing and how it fits in,
how it works.”
Zilber tries to get workshop students to achieve a balance between
reacting to everything that happens and completely disregarding what
is going on around them. “I try hard to encourage them to find the
golden mean between that, which is modeled so wonderfully by the
Bill Evans Trio, Miles Davis’ mid-’60s quintet and current groups led
by Jean-Michel Pilc, Keith Jarrett and Wayne Shorter,” he said.
Jason Goldman directs the LACHSA Combo G, an advanced sextet
of tenor sax, trombone, guitar, piano, bass and drums that plays student
compositions as well as jazz standards arranged by band members.
For the past three years, the band has performed short tours with
alto saxophonist Bobby Watson.
“One of our main goals is achieving a cohesive group sound,”
Goldman said. “We are always discussing the concept of doing things
for the right reasons, always serving the music and not the individual.
It’s a mature and professional concept, but these students are beyond
your average high school musician. I know these guys will play a big
part in the future of jazz. They play hard, swing hard, and give their
heart and soul to this music.”
This year at the Berklee College of Music High School Jazz
Festival in Boston, LACHSA Combo G members won all four individual
solo awards in their combo class.
The most recent incarnation of the Dave Brubeck Institute Jazz
Quintet under the direction of Joe Gilman features two saxes (two
Nick Frenay (trumpet)
and Noah Kellman:
Manlius Pebble Hill Duo
tenors or alto/tenor), piano, bass and drums.
“I try to get the fellows to compose their own material,” Gilman
said. “We also spend a lot of time learning standards and classic tunes
from the repertoire, about 50 tunes each year. We also study various
artists and their styles—students are required to learn several tunes and
solos by a handful of artist/composers.”
This year, the quintet studied Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter
and Jarrett, and took direction and inspiration from acclaimed guest
artists like Christian McBride, Marvin Stamm, Geoffrey Keezer, Ray
Drummond and Jeff Ballard.
Drummer and composer Spiro Sinigos assembled his quartet for his
senior recital last year, prior to graduating from Western Michigan
University in Kalamazoo. With a little guidance from faculty member
Keith Hall, the group (sax, piano, bass and drums) worked up five
original tunes by Sinigos and one new arrangement of a standard.
“Spiro composed his tunes around new styles including West
African grooves that he explored over the course of the last two years,”
Hall said. “Spiro also had the opportunity to spend time with visiting
professor Billy Hart, who helped him develop as a drummer and composer.
During the semester of his recital, Spiro worked every week
with Scott Cowan on the melodic and harmonic maps of his tunes.”
Sinigos is currently pursuing a master’s degree in jazz performance
at Queens College. He teaches at the New World Music Center School
of Music in Long Island, N.Y.
—Ed Enright
84 DOWNBEAT June 2009