During the week of April 20th, Illinois Central College celebration to the arts known as Arts Week and I decided to see performance by the Hard Bop Jazz Band on April 21st at ICC lecture/recital hall. I chose to go to this concert because I like jazz and I’ve also seen this group perform over the years and thought that it would just be fun, relaxing and entertaining to watch. I wasn’t wrong at all about it.
The show had a bit of a warm up with a guest band called The Lincoln College Jazz Combo which featured a former Hard Bop player, Jeff Arbisi, who played the woodwinds while the other two played piano and drums. As I said before they were warming up the crowd before the show started.
Then the Bop band came out and started off playing “Whirly Bird” by Neal Hefti. It started off a bit loud but then moved towards of an andante and viace I want to say. It had that walking pace with a mix of lively feel to it.
There’s one performance that kind of stole the show, probably completely. The performance tune was “Bean’s Bag” by Ethan Freier. It started off loud and then moved to allegretto style that was moderately fast and then moved up to presto very fast as I want to say. But it was the solos of both the drummer (Nick Fairley or Zach Crall) and the bass player (Regan Berkshier) that kind of stole the show with their rhythmic beat. The beat of those drums and the base playing really stole the show and had the audience applauding loud and clear, even while the band was still performing that song.
Another was “Struttin’ With Some Barbeque” by Lillian Hardin Armstrong. This performance was just
moderato rhythmic feel of just being moderate and soon it was picking up into an allegro pace.
This was a really good size band in number of instruments that were used in this performance. From brass from trumpet to trombones and even some saxophone too. Not to mention keyboard instrument like the piano was used, only once when the director Larry Harms was playing a tune. But it was mostly used during the warm up and intermission from the Lincoln College Jazz Combo.
And I can’t forget the electronic instruments like the electric guitar and the bass. There were pretty amazing to watch.
The band wore black outfits to common date the feel of it being jazz. I feel the experience of sitting up a couple of rows back was perfect to listen to a group like this. I felt the rhythms that they were playing and that includes the beat that had me moving. It kind gave me that life feeling that just made me want to dance too.
I really enjoyed and had a blasted watching this performance. I enjoy jazz and I’ll say this that I haven’t been to a jazz performance in a year or so and coming back and seeing this group perform was just amazing.
I don’t think that there was anything wrong with the performance. If the music has me moving and my leg is bouncing up and down, side to side than it’s a hit.
I’ve decided to go see this concert because I’ve seen this group before in the past and thought that it might be fun just watching them again. Yeah there are new members and there are some that stayed. I did write reviews of their concerts in the past for the ICC Harbinger so I guess I kind of know what to expect just a bit.
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