The Online Reflector

The University of Indianapolis presented the Jazz Combo in Ruth Lilly Performance Hall in the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center on Nov. 15.

The hall was filled with the sound of jazz music as the combo performed seven classic jazz standards with six different instruments.

Audience members at the event were given the opportunity to embrace the sounds of the music and cheer for those  involved in the performance, as each musician in the combo played upbeat tunes.

Associate Professor of Music Harry Miedema directed the concert. He has taught saxophone and jazz courses at UIndy since 1985.

Miedema said that he and the group’s main task during the concert was to bring everyone together and play cohesively.

“Our task at a Jazz Combo is to figure out how to improvise and how to create solos, and that takes some time,” Miedema said. “In that group, we had several upperclassmen, but we also had a couple of freshmen. So the freshmen are just starting to learn rules and things about improvising.”

However, Miedema said he was able to acknowledge signs of improvement within the group.

“One of the players had played something they had learned. And in music, we’re used to learning notes, not how the notes should sound,” he said. “So he played this thing he learned, but he played it and it sounded exactly like a jazz player. It wasn’t that he just played the right notes, he sounded good playing it. I was impressed by that.”

Sophomore jazz major Chaz Rhodes was one of the musicians who performed at the Jazz Combo, and he agreed that he and his fellow performers needed to learn how to improvise and how to play their music together as one group.

“Whenever you play, especially in front of an audience, you always strive to do everything perfectly,” Rhodes said. “Sometimes perfection just gets in the way. This particular concert was difficult for me because I’m still learning how to improvise.”

Through these challenges, Rhodes used Miedema’s words of advice to him to find the inspiration he needed to play well at the concert.

“Harry tells us that there are only two kinds of notes: the notes you like, and the notes you don’t like,” he said. “And tonight, I definitely played more of the notes I liked, so I would say I did well. It only gets better from here.”

Rhodes went on to talk about his thought process during the performance and how he responded to mistakes made during the performance.

“As a performer, it’s always a struggle to tell how good of a job you’ve done,” Rhodes said. “It’s very easy to be playing something and just lose sight of what you are doing because your mind is stuck on that one note you missed two minutes back.”

Miedema agreed that the performers made mistakes, but recovery would be possible.

“One would not expect everything to come out perfectly, but it’s about the players’ reactions when something goes a little bit different; their reaction and how they get back on track, and how they react to it on their instrument,” Miedema said.

Miedema said that the performance turned out well because of the performers’ quick reactions and improved improvisation.

He believes the future will look continue to look brighter every day if they build on what they have already learned in class.

“The group’s reactions were really excellent,” he said. “We’re going to learn a lot this year, and I’m pretty happy about it.”