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Students watch a student ensemble perform in Lu's cafe, located in the Family Studies Building, on a wintry Thursday night.

Student Ensemble Warms Cold Night With Hot Jazz

By: Nick Hennessey

Posted: 1/26/07

When you really think about it, and really listen to it, and really watch it, it becomes clear that the UConn jazz ensemble's shows are one of the best values in on-campus entertainment. Sagaciously strutting through jazz standards and classics with a refined gait, this student group demonstrates musicianship on levels usually left to the professionals.

Thursday night saw this semester's second installation of "Jazz Night" at Lu's Cafe in the Family Studies Building, with an incarnation of the ensemble well worth the $3 charged at the door.

At the mark of 9 p.m., the band scrupulously initiated its first song, while students as well as additional band members began filtering in. By the second song, keyboardist and ensemble veteran Dan Campoliuta had set up his instrument and was letting loose. And with that, the quartet conveyed a sensuous stream of jazz consciousness to the crowd comprised equally of engrossed spectators and those who were half-listening, engaged in conversation.

Mike Knox, of "Great Pick" esteem, grooved to the pulses that reverberated through the strings of his bass throughout the performance, his notes coaxed by wary fingers. Juxtaposing high and low notes in a solo midway through the second song, Knox gave an expressive touch to the song that his subdued bassline previously supported.

In his polo shirt and backwards cap, Knox's amusingly puerile remarks to the crowd between the ensemble's expertly improvised playing gave the perfomance a paradoxical quality. He noted the first half of the show had a "bonus bonist," referring to the presence of Chris Espy, an impermanent member of the ensemble on the trombone. Espy cooly relayed the tasteful melody of the third number, Lee Morgan's "Ceora."

By the fourth song, the cafe was packed. Listeners embraced Matt Santaceroce's cunning drum fills which made way for the other instrumentalist's tight pauses. Santaceroce, the only non-music major of the bunch sat stolid on his stool through the night as he manipulated the rhythm with lightly-tapped snare hits.

Campoliuta clinched the final song of the first set with a sinister-sounding hook. Returning from the short break, the quartet was now a quintet as Chris Espy's trombone was replaced with Kyle Beecher and Tom Wise on Trumpet and Saxaphone, respectively.

The quintet proved able to adapt themselves to the various terrains of Jazz. They swung whimsically through Blue Mitchell's "Fungii Mama," garnished by Santaceroce's rim taps. Santaceroce, on this song and others, played with an accent that writhed with diffidence and ironically strengthened the song's fundamental groove.

Beecher and Wise united on the next and final song, Winton Kelly's "Kelly Blue." Their notes layered on top of the eerie double string bass plucks accented by resolute ride hits. "Kelly Blue," lasted for twenty minutes and allowed each member his fair amount of time in the limelight. As Wise took center stage, he quivered with energy as his fingers crept along notes at a Coltrane-worthy pace.

"I couldn't tell if the saxophonist was on another level than the band or if the band was on another level than the saxophonist," said Matt Nucci, a 4th-Semester Neurobiology major. "But it doesn't matter, that's what jazz is all about-expression."

At the conclusion of the song, Knox told the crowd, "Enjoy your night, enjoy your life, listen to jazz."

After the show, Campoliuta responded to a remark about the conveyance of Thelonious Monk's melodies in his playing in an aptly erudite fashion. "I had a Monk phase," he said, cooly relaying the fact that it was a completely subconscious insertion. "If you know the idiom, it'll probably come out in your playing."

Beecher noted the fact that the musicians hadn't even received the songs' chord progressions until earlier that day, which necessitates an improvisational approach like Campoliuta's. All the musicians listen to jazz regularly because, as Santaceroce put it, "you have to."