The Wayne State music department — under the supervision of Chris Collins, director of jazz studies — launched a two-day extravaganza of workshops and performances for musicians and fans starting on Oct. 23. The program, “Tenor Madness,” featured some of the most renowned jazz personalities, including Francois Louis, Claudio Zolla, Emanuele Cisi and Jerry Bergonzi.
The program began with a welcome by Collins in which he introduced the guests to those who were later featured. They then took turns hosting hour-long sessions for students, the public and the online community, which sent in a constant stream of interesting questions.
The sessions were very educational and entertaining. Louis and Bergonzi had equal passion for the subject but two entirely different styles. Louis had a warm, endearing tutorial style; Bergonzi, by contrast, did a rap session made up of questions and answers.
He was plain spoken and very humorous, but he maintained such a straight countenance most of the time that there were a few seconds of delay before the audience grasped some of his punch lines.
Louis dealt mainly with how music was crafted and how instruments were constructed to produce it. He started by defining sound, then he used the responses and, in detailed mathematical steps, showed how breathing sets air in motion causing vibrations, which when funneled through conical shaped instruments in controlled amounts of space, creates the sounds we enjoy. He illustrated this with diagrams, the best of which looked like a diamond. The way that its prism shape captures light at different angles is like the direction of the air flow inside each instrument when it’s being played.
Bergonzi answered questions about his own technique and the general mastery of the saxophone. He spoke of his favorite players and how they inspired him. He said that writing music was like breathing because even when he was without his instrument, he was mentally practicing all the time. Yet he repeatedly told the audience “don’t think.”
“The mind is a terrible thing, you can’t listen to it,” Bergonzi said.
In short, he showed that people should have so much fun playing that it becomes effortless. One of his most memorable quotes was his answer to this question from an audience member: “What music do you want to hear in the future?”
“I want to go up in space and hear what they do up there,” Bergonzi said. Clearly for him, the possibilities are boundless.
Ultimately, what resonated with me from both presentations is that the beauty of music is not created without practice.
The climax of the day was the evening jam session in which Bergonzi, Cisi and Collins teamed up with four others to perform impromptu pieces of music “charts” written by students in the audience. These artists jammed. The saxophonists led off and then stepped back to allow each of the accompanists to take turns showcasing their talents.
For the “charts,” they played jazz guitarist Chuck Newsom’s composition first. It was very complex and quite unique with a catchy and off-beat rhythm. Tenor saxophonist James Hughes provided them with two pieces. His first was at an easygoing, soulful pace. It was quite romantic, and he said it was his favorite of the two, perhaps because he wrote it in celebration of his second wedding anniversary. His second song called to mind the “chug-chugging” of a train at night, with the occasional sound of a warning blast. And yet, it was still the sort of tune that could easily rock the listener to sleep.
Guitarist Raymond Ureña’s piece seemed to catch the eye of the team. He described it as a conversation for three tenors and indeed the saxophonists seemed to take the solo melody in turns as in a conversation. Played at a medium pace, it really got a few heads bobbing and feet tapping all around. The team then did one last jam, a familiar tune that they played in unison.
Everyone who loves jazz and big band music really should have been there.
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