Jazz festival brings 29 high school to BYU

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    By JANAE HACKWORT

    This week the BYU Department of Music will be presenting the 17th annual jazz festival. Special guest performers along with BYU jazz groups will perform throughout the week to celebrate and encourage a love of jazz.

    Twenty-nine high schools throughout Utah and Idaho will be attending the week-long activities.

    “The festival is to encourage the jazz program in high schools,” said Shannon Harrison, the secretary for bands, ensembles, and conducting. “They can acquire an understanding and taste for jazz.”

    There is no certain type of person that will like jazz or the festival.

    “Anybody who enjoys any kind of music will like the jazz festival,” said Emily Lambson, a freshman illustration major from Columbia, Mo., who will be performing with “Syncopation” in the jazz festival.

    “Jazz is a unique form of music to America,” said Lars Yorgason, a part-time faculty member and director of the vocal jazz group, “Syncopation.”

    “We are dedicated to teaching and spreading jazz. It is beneficial to everyone and is a great art form,” Yorgason said.

    “Jazz started in the last decade of last century and the first two decades of this century,” Yorgason said. “Jazz didn’t really come into organized playing like today until around 1909 or 1912 when the public became more aware of it.”

    Jazz was originally considered black folk music.

    “The most successful jazz players were black,” Yorgason said.

    It wasn’t until the 1930’s that successful white jazz players started to emerge, he said.

    One of the key characteristics of jazz music that makes it such a unique form of music is the use of improvisation.

    “The songs are written in the first place. The melody and chords are written, but the essence of jazz is to improvise new melodies. The original melody is played once but is then ignored while new melodies are introduced,” Yorgason said.

    Jazz vocalists do not improvise as much.

    “Vocalists stick closer to the melody while players improvise more,” he said.

    Throughout the week concerts will be held featuring different types of jazz groups. Each group will also feature renowned guest performers known for their expertise.

    Tonight the BYU “Jazz Legacy Dixieland Band” will kick off the week of activities.

    The band will play New Orleans and Chicago style jazz in their performance.

    “This music is happy, toe-tapping and entertaining,” said Steve Call, a faculty member and director of the Dixieland Band. This style of music was first made popular during the 1920’s.

    To continue on in the week, the vocal jazz group, “Syncopation,” will perform on Feb. 29. The BYU faculty jazz quartet and a five-member private group, “In Cinque,” will also perform.

    “Syncopation” is a 15 member vocal group accompanied by piano, bass, and drums.

    “Vocal music uses the same stylistic devices as instrumental, but the tunes are not found in any other vocal literature,” Yorgason said.

    Vocalist, Kitty Margolis of San Francisco, Calif., will be the guest performer in this performance.

    March 1 and 2 will finish-off the week with performances by “Synthesis” and “Motion Poets,” formally known as “The Little Big Band.”

    The guest performer at these performances will be percussionist, Peter Erskine.

    High school bands will also have the opportunity to perform for adjudication their own jazz pieces on Saturday in the de jong Concert Hall

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