Jazzed About Jazz

We have paid for a family membership to the Dickinson Area Concert Association yearly since moving here, and we have greatly enjoyed the concerts and plays that have been part of each season. Tonight was no exception. The opening event of this season was a concert by Chris Brubeck's Triple Play. Chris Brubeck's father is the legendary American jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, some of whose music includes "Take Five," "Unsquare Dance" (in 7/4 time), and "Blue Rondo à la Turk" (in 9/8 time).

Well, Chris certainly has inherited his father's musical talents--and developed some of his own, too. He and two fellow members of the ensemble came out on stage in pretty casual clothes and played a variety of funk and jazz. Chris himself alternated between bass trombone, piano, and fretless electric bass guitar. Joel stuck with guitar, and "Madcat" played a kind of hi-hat cymbal and a variety of harmonicas and jaw harps. They all took turns singing, too.

Their enjoyment over playing together was contagious. They laughed and exchanged one-liners and played without looking at music sheets and improvised and interacted with the audience and paused to tell stories or explain interesting aspects of upcoming songs and switched instruments and thoroughly impressed those of us in the audience for whom jazz isn't a first choice when selecting music to listen to.

For a play date after school today, Hillary had her friend Lexi over, whose parents were planning to go to the concert, too. So Lexi stayed for supper, and we brought her along to the concert, where we sat beside her parents and her toddler sister. Her dad (a colleague in my department at work, by the way) is a jazz aficionado, so he was lovin' every minute of it. Lexi even got invited onstage to help Madcat play one song. He had a container of all sorts of noise makers: toys and party favors that one winds up, blows through, shakes, or taps in order to make sound. He told her that he was going to start the song and occasionally reach out his hand, and she was to place into it anything at all from the box. Each time she did that, he kept the song going on the harmonica and added to the rhythm whatever she handed him. At one point he was even playing two harmonicas with his mouth and a third with his nose!

We had to tell Hillary all about it, though, because she slept through that song! The night just got a wee bit too long for her, and she nodded off toward the end. But we all had a great time.