Jazz Jam fosters awareness in community

One look around Café Django Tuesday night and it wasn’t hard to find the people who really get jazz.

They’re the ones who were tapping their feet in time with the omnipresent bass, snapping their fingers almost unconsciously and closing their eyes from time to time, completely lost in the sound.

The restaurant off Kirkwood hosted it’s monthly Django Jazz Jam, an event hosted by Jazz from Bloomington.

The event aims to raise awareness of jazz in the Bloomington community and bring together artists of all demographics to play in a relaxed, collaborative environment.

A handful of artists showed up, ranging from a fourth-grade drummer to IU graduate student Neil Ferris.

Ferris is the current vice president of Jazz from Bloomington. He said these events, which have been going on for more than a year now, are largely successful despite the general shortage of interest in jazz in the college community.

“It’s an art music, so it’s a little different from, like, power tunes,” he said. “That’s more of an entertainment gig.”

Jazz from Bloomington is host to several other musical and educational events during the year.

The group’s largest function of the year is the Grant Street Jazz Fest.

The festival, the second one so far, took place the weekend before IU classes started.
The festival featured local and regional jazz musicians and groups.

This year, artists included the Jazz Fables Quintet, the Post Modern Jazz Quintet and the Monika Herzig Acoustic Jazz Project.

Ferris said Jazz from Bloomington is a nonprofit organization seeking to promote jazz in the community by offering affordable events.

Organization cofounder Monika Herzig sat behind the piano from time to time, easing the improvised music forward and leaving hints of her advice for the younger musicians.

“What do I enjoy about jazz? That’s a big question,” Sarah Gage, freshman and IU Jacobs School of Music student, said as she watched the group up front set up their instruments. “I’m a classical player, but I love listening to jazz and I really feel it. I’d like to learn more so I can be able to speak the same language that these guys do everyday, you know?”

A bassist at the event, IU jazz student Quinn Sternberg, said jazz is “music that’s all about the spirit of the moment. It’s all improvised, so anything can happen. It keeps you on your toes.”

Overhearing Sternberg, drummer Matt McCarthy laughed and said all jazz musicians were supposed to sound deep and intellectual when they spoke.

Sternberg graduated from IU last May with a degree in telecommunications, but he said he has a passion for music that dates back to his childhood.

“It’s sort of the sense that at any moment, it could fall apart,” McCarthy said of playing jazz. “Everyone’s just kind of winging it ... it’s a very communal thing, and it’s very raw.”

McCarthy said he doesn’t think jazz music is underrepresented in the college community, but there is a lack of interest.

“It’s kind of like women’s athletics,” he said. “You know it’s there, but for some reason, most people just don’t wanna go.” 

Sternberg picked up his bass, plucking a few low, resonating notes before the set began.

When it did, his concentration on his instrument was unbreakable.

The look on his face and the intensity in his hands said it all — he gets jazz.

“This jam session is just the last Tuesday of every month,” he said before he started playing, “But there’s music happening everywhere.”

Follow reporter Anicka Slachta on Twitter @ajslachta.