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The sound of jazz
By Emile Hallez
ehallez@mscd.edu

Photo by Cora Kemp • ckemp@mscd.edu Having just finished in the warm-up room, Ian Skaronea of Career Education Center School and his band members prepare to perform for the judges during the April 13 Jazz Celebration at Auraria.

A handful of Hot Tomatoes, a woman scatting against homelessness and an eccentric drummer possibly abducted by aliens headlined the Jazz Celebration, an eclectic three-day extravaganza of jazz clinics and concerts April 12 to 14 at Metro.

The series of shows coincided with one of April’s lesser-known themes: National Jazz Appreciation Month.

The Hot Tomatoes Dance Orchestra, a nine-member Denver arsenal of horns, vocals, strings and drums, filled the King Center Thursday night with their classic brand of Glen Miller-esque swing. Feet were tapping and hands were clapping among the audience young and old alike.

René Marie’s risky but successful mix of scat, blues and manifest emotion earned her two standing ovations Friday night.

“I’m feeling everything,” Marie said about her mindset during her extroverted performances. “I’m totally spent afterwards.”

One of Marie’s final songs was “This is (not) a Protest Song,” a piece she wrote to help raise awareness about homelessness in the U.S. One by one, audience members stood, following Marie’s initiative to sing along, fists in the air.

“I feel a little anger at the fact that there’s even a need to write a song like that. I feel sad because I’m thinking about my brother and aunt, but I also feel really happy that I see if people are being moved.” Proceeds from the sale of her single of the song go to groups that assist the homeless, she said.

Matt Wilson’s Arts & Crafts opened their set Saturday night with “We See,” an up-tempo explosion that ended with Wilson leaping off his drum kit to center stage, simultaneously playing a harmonica and a Nacho Libre talking pen.

“It represents the freedom in which we can express ourselves with various things,” Wilson said jokingly about the novelty pen. “I like the way it sounds.”

Wilson and his band of organ, trumpet and bass players are a veritable force in the revolution of popular jazz. Despite the surgical precision with which they operate their axes, they fight the traditionally academic and intimidating air of the genre with punchy swing and a light-hearted approach.

“I think people are scared of jazz musicians, like they think their music is intellectual ... but it is a folk music, for god’s sakes,” Wilson said. “People should give it a chance.”

In fact, the manner in which Arts & Crafts presented jazz was so alien that, not surprisingly, Wilson confessed to a fabricated rumor that he is an inhuman vessel sent from the galaxy Percussia Omega Nine to disseminate drum-related propaganda.

“Sure, that’s all true. I was actually kidnapped years ago by an alien vessel and given clues about what this is all about, and I’ve tried to spread that word as much as possible,” he said.

While the festival was a means for Metro to attract potential music students, it gave both students and teachers a chance to interact with one another and polish their skills.

“Recruiting is a big idea, but ... I really just think of it as a chance for these young students to come here and get a chance to hear each other and hear some suggestions on ways they can be better musicians,” said Metro music teacher Ron Miles, producer of the Jazz Celebration, who performed Friday and Saturday evenings with Marie’s and Wilson’s groups. Events at the festival ranged from high-school student performances to clinics for vocal jazz and teacher education.

“The people that participated this year are some of the biggest jazz names,” said Antwon Owens, a music education major at Metro who helped produce the event. “A lot of the feedback that we got back from the teachers that participated (said) that this was one of the best festivals, up and coming.”

Perhaps the most salient aspect of the festival was that jazz, while far from dead, is an underappreciated form of entertainment. The King Center’s Concert Hall was merely half full during Marie and Wilson’s shows.

“It can be Jazz Appreciation Month, and still audiences are dwindling,” Wilson said. “People are staying home too much. ... The world needs to get out of their house more and experience any kind of art, whether it’s a jazz concert or even going to clubs.”