The Online Reflector

“Trombonanza,” part of the Jazz Concert Series, was held Oct. 3 in the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center. The concert included a quintet of trombones and a rhythm section composed of piano, bass and drums.

“Historically there have been several groups of like instruments. For instance, the group Super Sax is five saxophones and a rhythm section, and it was very popular about 20 years ago,” said Professor of Music Harry Miedema. “And so the idea is not new or particularly inventive on my part. But I ran across someone who actually had the arrangements for a group this size, and I thought it would be interesting to put that on as a concert.”

Miedema helps organize the concerts for the Jazz Concert Series, which includes helping to pick out the pieces of music to be performed and hiring the musicians.

The group was led by Vaughn Wiester, who played second trombone and performed 10 songs. The performance began with “Wind Bag,” a piece by Kai Winding. The piece featured solos by third trombone Alyssa Mehnert, first trombone Loy Hetrick, Wiester, piano player Steve Allee and bass player Nick Tucker.

During the number, Wiester tapped his toes to the music and shouted encouragements to the various soloists, which he did throughout the concert. This element kept audience members engaged.

“The front man was extremely animated, which was awesome, because no one likes to see performances when people just stand there. Its never fun,” said sophomore undecided major AJ Anderson. “Clearly he was into it. So how do you not want to watch someone who’s into what they’re doing?”

After the first piece, Wiester introduced the group and gave the audience additional information about the music. For example, “Wind Bags” features chord changes that match with ones heard in “Gone with the Wind.”

The next number, entitled “Say When,” featured a duet between Mehnert and Wiester and added a story element to the song. The number “The Preacher,” by Horace Silver, Wiester explained that the chord changes in this song were based on the ones found in the American classic song “Working on the Railroad.” The piece featured solos from three of the trombone players and parts of the rhythm section. Wiester described the drummer as having a “pretty good strut” after the piece.

The group then played “Velvet Mist,” a song by Gary Carney, who Weister described as his close friend who had passed away. The song had a strong bass trombone presence from Jared Rodin and featured a solo from Allee. For “A Bone-a-fide-bossa” the musicians added mufflers to their instruments and took them off in the middle of the song.

Wiester introduced “Carmendia” as the composer’s tribute to his wife, and had strong piano solos from Allee.

The concert wrapped up with songs by Duke Ellington and a Brazil composer Joao Gilberto. Wiester diverted the attention toward Rodin saying that the bass trombone is “where the actions at.”

Anderson had never been to a concert formatted like “Trombonanza” and enjoyed the Duke Ellington piece as well as the last song by Gilberto the best.

“I thought it was great. I had never seen just a quintet of trombones before,” Anderson said. “So I didn’t know what to expect.”