This week on Alley Chats we’re changing things up a little bit. Sam Bruce wrote about a show at One World Cafe instead of a show at John’s Alley Tavern.
A silky-smooth jazz recital took place at One World Cafe Sunday evening. Mitch Gibbs, a trumpet player and fourth-year UI student, brought together classmates from the university’s Jazz Band 1 class to perform his final jazz recital at the venue.
The music played included original arrangements and compositions by Gibbs. The difference between an arrangement and composition, is a composition is an original piece of music, where an arrangement is a melody written by another artist that is tweaked by the performer.
“I change it so that it fits the band. So (with) a lot of this stuff, I did things to the melody to make it more creative, and put my own twist on it,” Gibbs said in reference to the arrangements he performed. “It’s just a really fun way to treat other people’s work.”
When Gibbs is writing his own compositions, he sits at a piano for a while and sings along to the music. Doing this helps him find a melody he likes. He will then write it down and start to experiment with interesting chords to go along with it. One of the original pieces he played at the show was called “Reflections”.
In music writing, one of his influences is Thad Jones, a trumpet player and big band composer. Another influence of Gibbs’s is trumpet player Vern Sielert. Sielert is a UI professor and the artistic director for Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. Gibbs said he thinks Sielert is a wonderful arranger and is one of his biggest influences when it comes to writing music.
The music Gibbs and his classmates performed was not all planned out before the show. During their songs an individual musician would stand up from their chairs and perform an improvised solo while the other musicians would carry on with the rhythm and melody.
At this recital, the times people would take improved solos was rehearsed, but at other shows the band has done together they might look around at each other and with visual cues, decide who would take the improved solo.
In preparation for the show at One World, Gibbs and the band got together to practice Gibbs’s work. The first few times they practiced were so Gibbs could hear the music he had written and decide if he liked it or not. If he didn’t, he would change the charts slightly and then finalize the production and rehearse.
Sam Bruce | Argonaut
Gibbs has also played with the Washington Idaho Symphony for three years and has done two recording sessions with the Bob Curnow Big Band for Sierra Music Publications in Spokane, Washington. He has also spent the last two summers playing with the Bigfork Summer Playhouse in Montana, where he would play shows all summer for about 14 straight weeks.
Snohomish, Washington, his hometown, is where Gibbs developed his passion for music. This all started with inspiration from his high school band director.
His band director originally pushed Gibbs to pursue music as a career. But he said going to college showed him how wide the world of music is and how many opportunities there are for a talented musician.
Gibbs will be a teaching assistant next semester, and after that he will be going to graduate school. He’s been in contact with many different graduate schools and hopes to land in a big city with a vibrant music scene. After graduate school, he hopes to make a living playing music, playing the horn specifically.
The next few music shows in town are, Bill LaVoie along with Joe Evavold playing at One World Café on Nov. 22, Amanda Winterhalter with Margo Cilker and Meredith Brann on Nov. 23 at Humble Burger.
On Dec, 6, Bass Tracks will be playing at John’s Alley Tavern. The band features home-grown musicians from Molalla, Oregon and is described by their website as a country-rock powerhouse.
Sam Bruce can be reached at [email protected]