My Experiences Listening to a Live Performance of...

My Experiences Listening to a Live Performance of Christian McBride Big Band. I have never been in a jazz club before. I always wanted to attend a live performance of American jazz musicians and learn more about the history of jazz. It was one of the reasons I chose this class in the first place. From my perspective, I view jazz together with classical instrumental music as elegant and exclusive. I associate it with luxurious restaurants, theaters, places like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, where people with great taste and deep understanding of music come to enjoy performances and celebrate important moments in their life. For my final paper I had an opportunity to visit the famous Village Vanguard jazz club on January 12th, 2014.†¦show more content†¦I am not even sure which part was improvisation and which part was planned because Blake’s solos sounded very cerebral, relaxing, harmonious, soulful and pure. Todd Bashore, an alto saxophonist, sounded to me more di scordant, extremely energetic, fast, brisk, and unstoppable. Bashore seemed to want to show his best skills in improvisation on his alto saxophone and it looked like he could do it for hours. Steve Wilson, an alto saxophonist who was sitting next to him, kind of gave him hints that it was time to stop. I found it was interesting and pleasant to see how passionate a musician can be in his play, so much that time stops for him while he is in the flow state. I really liked Ron Blake because I associated him somehow with John Coltrane, but playing slower and calmer. Ron Blake’s music sounded to me like a mellow, sensual mix of modal jazz, cool jazz and smooth jazz in Shake and Blake and Black Narcissist. What I liked about Steve Wilson was that during almost the entire performance he sat, eyes closed and joyfully moving his head with the rhythm of the melody. I could feel easiness and bluesiness in his musical approach when he played Shake and Blake, Black Narcissus, and Gettingà ¢â‚¬â„¢ to It. Christian McBride won my heart with his incredible sense of humor and extraverted personality. I could see that he is a wonderful leader because he showed his respect and appreciation to his band and especially Ron Blake, to whom he referred to