The lights dim and slowly fade to a cool blue glow that covers the stage. The drum set waits facing in towards the rest of the instruments. Its signaling to the others as if it is time to play; reflecting greens and oranges off the symbols that hang motionlessly above the set. Across from the drums an electric keyboard is perched on top of a slender metal stand. Its plugged into its amplifier but not on yet although it seemingly know exactly what it is about to play. The bass stands against the wall, completely relaxed and ready to begin the music, just as a bass would, while the saxophone, shining brightly, seems almost anxious to begin.
All of these instruments are glowing as if they are ready to explode with the music that their players are about to evoke out of them. The band has finished setting up their equipment and patiently waits to start. They let the crowd fill out a little, although this club is not a big venue at all, their fare share of friends, musicians, and jazz enthusiasts will show up. Others will migrate in from the bar and pool tables that are in the front of the restaurant. Robert Josp, the groups drummer stands back by the side entrance where he talks to a friend and her husband, while Jeff Decker the sax player, speaks with one of his students and a friend who have showed to hear some live jazz, while a few other college students sit on the couches on the small balcony above the stage. The rest of the band is waiting and talking to people dispersed around the stage.
Essay About Dealing With Stage Fright
... scared, that I didn't have stage fright. Opening night, it all changed. We stood backstage, in costume and makeup, ... I happened to be standing next to my best friend. She was such a source of encouragement. Her hug got ... and we all did great. I've learned that stage fright can be cured by trust, practice, and ... first time I was onstage, I had terrible stage fright. It was a high school production, and ...
The guest percussionist they have for the evening is eating his dinner while the group finishes setting up. The whole atmosphere is very friendly and warm, just as it looks. The musicians and the audience set the scene for the club even before the music starts, and it is this feeling of the live show that brings the jazz community together here and in many other cities around the world to hang out, dance, meet new people and listen to music. The world of Charlottesville, Virginia completely changes as you enter the doors of Raptures. As you enter you come into a brick restaurant with big booth tables and an open kitchen right there. The main doors exit out onto the Historic Downtown Mall of Charlottesville. This is a strip of about five outdoor blocks of shops, restaurants and entertainment.
Everyone in the city knows where this is and occasionally comes down to hang out. It is popular for kids to meet their friends here, college students to go out to bars, and even a good place for business people to take associates out for lunch. The arts community of Charlottesville has also grown a lot in this area. There are many surrounding galleries and a couple small bars that offer live music regularly. The city also offer a regular weekly concert series from the spring into the fall called Fridays after five. Bands take the stage on an open amphitheatre at the end of the mall and play all night. It is events like this and the live music that the restaurants promote that really bring the music community together in Charlottesville. People like Robert Josp and his band Inner Rhythm have really worked hard to help the growing music scene in the city as well.
They have set up a weekly concert series every Thursday night at Raptures club that they played this fall and all spring. During the summer they also have shows all over Virginia and the East coast. They also promote the spreading of the jazz culture as many of them play in separate groups that play throughout the summer at other clubs. Josp himself even runs a drum workshop through the University which promotes music education and knowledge of jazz and other music that may influence his playing and the bands as well. Before the band went on that night I sat down and spoke with Robert Josp and ask him a few questions about jazz and the culture surrounding it in Charlottesville. I asked him how the city and the music scene influence his music.
The Term Paper on Cuban Music Jazz Rhythms Latin
Music of the WorldSocarras started by playing the Cotton Club and in black revues, recording the first flute solos jazz with Clarence Williams, Sidney Bechet's and Louis Armstrong's producer. Once he had built up a reputation, he founded a big band that mixed classical music, Cuban rhythms and jazz. His music was a total novelty at the time, and one contemporary American critic wrote of the savage ...
Being a music professor at the University of Virginia he is always surrounded with the culture. His biggest influence though is the local club scene. This is where most of the musicians and artists come together. There has been a real growth in Charlottesville of the arts in general, and it is almost like being involved in a club of its own. This is interesting about Charlottesville because there is an urban setting, although not very big, that allows a social scene to exist while being small enough to keep the culture in the community. The urban setting is very important for the jazz scene to thrive, because as Josp put it, you need a culturally vibrant setting, and Charlottesville is just big enough to offer that. He also explained to me that this was part of why the jazz culture in Washington and New York is so active. Having played shows in each of those cities, Josp has been very open to the different social scenes and settings of jazz. One thing that he pointed out to me that is really interesting about jazz in general was that they play really good, worldly jazz without being in a huge city like New York. This seems like a really obvious statement but it is an important point.
Josp is saying that when comparing the jazz scene in Charlottesville to that of a larger city, there isnt any better music coming out of the larger population. Jazz really is all about the music. The community is also one of the big issues for jazz. The ideas about culture and the scene are most evident at the live shows. This is where the jazz community comes together and actually becomes a scene. The live performance directly reflects the jazz culture better than any other type of music.
The people who follow this music enjoy it because of hearing it played live, and watching the bands communicate and create something. There is an interaction between the audience and the band as well. The band plays off of the audience as the audience reacts to keep the band into the music. You need both to have a successful show. What really drives this is? As Josp explained to me, the fact that you have the common interest of both the listeners and the players allows the performance to be a communal event. In jazz the musicians are playing a lot to also entertain themselves too.
The Term Paper on Miles Davis And The Development Of Improvisation In Jazz Music
Abstract This essay is a discussion of how the way jazz trumpeter Miles Davis changes his way of improvising, looking at two pieces from different times. The solos in the pieces were transcribed by myself and then analysed in detail. From these analyses, several conclusions on the style of improvising were drawn, and then the conclusions from the two pieces were compared. The piece New Rhumba, ...
The people who make up the audience at these shows range from all sorts of people. Speaking on the listeners of jazz, Clellon Holmes wrote, the jazz audience today is a group so enormous and so diverse that about the only thing they have in common is their feelings for jazz (Paul Lopes, pg 227).
The listeners who attend the shows that I went to at Raptures were very diverse especially for how un-diverse Charlottesville is. There are also many different accepted behavioral norms. The audience consists of all types of people, ranging from college students to senior citizens. Any ethnicity is accepted and many different people follow the culture, just as the music is made up of many different cultural influences.
It is fine if you just wander into the club off the street just to stop by to hear the music. Its fine to go out with friends and drink or not drink, or talk during the music and just hang out. Many people like to hear live music while they eat even. All of these behaviors are culturally normal to the jazz scene. Jazz ….
