IU conductor and professor Natalie Boeyink’s jazz ensemble will perform at the Musical Arts Center at 8 p.m. Nov. 20. The performance will be the group’s last concert of the fall semester and will feature 10 songs of varying length, from classics popularized by Frank Sinatra to an adaption of Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour.”
As a large jazz ensemble, the group is required to perform two concerts per semester. This concert comes just over a month after the ensemble’s first performance and will feature a balance of both short and long pieces, bringing the concert’s run time to about an hour.
Boeyink, a bassist and associate professor of jazz studies at the Jacobs School of Music, has directed the big band ensemble for three years. Sophomore David Pettus, a jazz saxophone major, has been in Boeyink’s ensemble for two years. He said Boeyink’s experience playing in rhythm sections makes her a detail-oriented composer.
“When she conducts, she’s always listening and very particular about entrances and what is being played, especially in the rhythm section,” Pettus said. “I think that knowledge she has helps us lock in and play better together.”
The show will open with a performance by musician and composer Matt Morey’s soulful and bluesy “The Stockhouse Shuffle,” written in honor of the late Janice Stockhouse, a former Bloomington High School North band director renowned in the local music community. Many of Stockhouse’s students ended up at the Jacobs School of Music.
Boeyink said she added this piece to the program to promote an upcoming Nov. 29 concert which will feature ensembles directed by Bloomington North alumni as a tribute to Stockhouse. As one of Stockhouse’s former students, Boeyink said she has a personal connection to the piece.
“It’s a tune that’s really meaningful for the IU jazz community,” she said. “It’s a good way to open the concert and get the audience excited about what’s coming.”
“To Dizzy With Love,” composed by the late founder of the Jacobs jazz studies program David Baker, is the second piece in the program. It is a bossa nova tune that features Pettus on a baritone saxophone solo and a trumpet solo from Ben Whitacre. Pettus said the piece’s chromatic substitutions and complex chord changes have challenged him throughout his rehearsal process.
“The chord changes are just very complex, so being able to figure out how to play over that and the straight-eighth feel is a little different than what I’ve been used to doing,” he said. “So, I feel like that’s challenged me to learn the style better and interpret the chord changes in a more complex way.”
Boeyink typically tries to feature Jacobs vocalists in her concerts, and Thursday’s show is no exception. Vocal jazz and arts management major Jack Reese will contribute vocals to three songs including “You Make Me Feel So Young” and “The Best Is Yet To Come,” both popularly known for their Frank Sinatra renditions, and “When Sunny Gets Blue,” which was originally sung by Johnny Mathis.
One of the concert’s most fast-paced moments will be facilitated by Bill Holman’s “Ready Mix,” a piece originally written for jazz and big band drum virtuoso Buddy Rich. It will feature guitar, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, drum and piano solos. Boeyink described the piece as “blazing fast.”
“Ready Mix” doesn’t come without its obstacles, though; Boeyink said the piece is one of the ensemble’s greater challenges due to its quick tempo and thorough syncopation.
“It feels like a horse race, in a way,” Boeyink said. “Because it’s like this kind of push and pull, with one line imitating and trailing the other, trying to catch up.”
Walker White is a bass trombonist and first year masters student in computer music composition. He is one of four featured soloists in “On Green Dolphin Street,” a classic 1947 jazz standard by Ned Washington and Bronislav Kaper. In contrast to the many times White has played this piece before, this arrangement will be performed in the F key, which he said is uncommon for this particular piece.
White said he hopes the performance will speak to fellow jazz musicians who may be in attendance.
“It’s a very well-known standard in the jazz community, so a lot of the audience will be familiar,” he said. “There are a lot of licks that I can play in my improvisatory section that might allow me to speak to some members of the audience that know the chart from their past experience, and that will be exciting.”
The second half of the program features a jazz-rock ballad by Sammy Nestico called “Samantha.” With its 1970s-inspired sound, swelling trumpets and alto saxophone feature, the piece will be one of the concert’s slower performances of the night.
Boeyink said “Samantha” is one of her favorite songs in the program. She hopes the piece will elicit an emotional response from the audience.
“It’s really beautiful, and it’s got some gorgeous moments,” Boeyink said. “It’s kind of one of those tunes where, when the sunshine comes out from behind the clouds, it makes the hair on your arm stand up.”
The concert will close with “Pea Shooter,” a piece composed by Jeff Lopez. It was composed in 1998, making it one of the most recent contemporary pieces on the program. Ending the concert on an up-tempo note, the song is a hard-driving sonic battle between drums and tenor saxophone.
“It’s really just a burner, the energy is high,” White said. “There’s some really cool solo sections going on. It’s really unlike anything I’ve ever played, and I think it highlights the technical ability of all the members of the ensemble.”
The performance will be free to attend. Additionally, it will also be livestreamed at LIVE@jacobs which is also free to access.
