The Fall season of UNO’s Jazz at the Sandbar series that has been livestreamed due to quarantine restrictions in 2020, is coming to a close. Don’t miss the last two performances. All shows are livestreamed at 7 p.m. CST via Facebook Live here.
Produced by the New Orleans Jazz Celebration, Jazz at the Sandbar is held in conjunction with the UNO Jazz Studies Program, creating a performance series Downbeat Magazine calls “One of the best things going in America.”
Organizers state: “If you are able, we would like to ask all viewers to consider donating to the George Brumat Scholarship Fund. All proceeds from the live shows’ $10 admission went to the fund that is an annual award made to a current Jazz Studies student who demonstrates exceptional dedication to the jazz community.” Donations can be made here.
November 11: Student Combo Showcase
Brian Seeger and the Graduate Student Ensemble will share musical highlights from their very productive semester. The group has created and recorded more than twenty original works this semester ranging from intimate and understated duos to full blown production pieces. Organizers state: “Enjoy these fresh sounds from this incredibly talented group while getting to meet them, hear about their creative processes and even ask them some questions live.”
From the Frenchmen Street scene to cutting-edge festivals, New Orleans is a vibrant, creative musical laboratory with performance opportunities on-and off-campus. UNO’s Jazz Studies students become masters by working with masters in the birthplace of Jazz. UNO Jazz Ensembles (combos) allow students to focus on a particular instrument, style, or composer; standard groups include the Guitar Ensemble, New Orleans Music Combo, the Composers’ Forum, and the World Beat Ensemble.
November 18: The Hot Club of New Orleans (rescheduled from October 28 due to Hurricane Zeta)
The Hot Club of New Orleans have challenged themselves with an awesome task: take the swing era music of Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, and Stephan Grappelli (among others), retain the classic groove, avoid sounding like a museum piece and then infuse it with their own modern sensibilities. Well, the first thing is these guys can all swing like mad. And they’re not a bunch of stuffy old “moldy figs.” But they do love this music-you can tell in their passionately delivered solos and the sly vocal readings. And, with two guitar players and an upright bass, they deliver the goods you’d expect from one of the swingingest drummers in New Orleans-but in keeping with the classic format of this music, there is actually no drummer…
The Hot Club of New Orleans excels at generating that warm, swinging drive that Django Reinhardt was famous for and at the same time transcends the idiom by eschewing blind obedience to stylistic conventions; in other words the solos are modern, kids. They play a somewhat laid-back yet exuberant groove, typical of New Orleans; yet they are so tight and swinging, their solos so driving, at times they seem almost superhuman.
