Jazz By Waubonsee Community College Jazz Ensemble: Concert Review

On Friday, November 22, 2019, the Waubonsee Community College Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Combo, Percussion ensemble had a concert event in the College Auditorium. Waubonsee Community College is a two years college in the west suburbs of Chicago and in their music department, they have a Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Combo, and Percussion Ensemble composed by students and professionals, which focusses on the performance of jazz music. I went to that concert because I love jazz, but also because I wanted to experience their talent and be able to support them. It was a small concert with a reasonable amount of people in the audience. They were couple of students, faculties and performers families. They played several songs and one of them drew my attention: Blue Bossa by Kenny Dorham, which is an instrumental jazz piece introduced on Joe Henderson’s 1963 album according to Wikipedia. Kenny Dorham, according to Wikipedia, is an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer who was frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but never received the kind of attention or public recognition from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did. I like the song because it is instrumental music and, because the song is recorded without lyrics, make all the instruments used enjoyable to listen to. The story behind the song contributed to humanity and it has several musical elements that we can explore such as its dynamic, its melody shape, its harmony, and its texture.

The aspect of the song we are going to talk about is the story behind it. Blue Bossa by Kenny Dorham has contributed to humanity by his story, which is related to the song melody and his trumpet skills. According to Rachel Bronstein, “Every jazz musician knows Blue Bossa, and many people outside the world of jazz know it at least by the melody.” But the fact that the song melody was very popular did not make him famous like his peers. Rachel explained this by saying that the man behind the composition of Blue Bossa is far more obscure and often regarded as the most underrated trumpeter in jazz. Kenny had great trumpet skills, wrote several jazz compositions, but never rose to the same legendary level as his peers. But his success came when he met with tenor man Joe Henderson in 1963. A friendship that produced Joe’s famous album, on which the first recording of Blue Bossa appeared as a feature for the bass according to Rachel Bronstein. The story behind Blue Bossa is that it was not Joe’s ability to deliver a melody that inspired Kenny to write Blue Bossa, but to use the song as a feature for the bass, which leads us to the first musical element of the song: texture.

The first musical element we are going to analyze is the texture of Blue Bossa. Texture refers to the way an instrument affects the tone. Blue Bossa was performed with several instruments including trumpet, tenor sax, piano, bass, guitar, alto sax, and drums. The real magic of this composition is that it is written around a bass line. According to jazzleadsheets.com, “For Kenny, the bass line was a very important part of the composition. If you listen carefully the excerpt, which starts at the beginning of the melody, you will hear the bass line.” At the beginning of the song, we can listen to the bass line with trumpet and tenor sax. They carry the melody by playing it in an average pitch. They provide the composition with a good rhythm and harmony for other instruments, which some of them play in a lower pitch and others start playing later during the song. As the song go on, we start to listen piano, alto sax, and drums. Almost at the end, there is a little sequence of drums which was my favorite part of the song because it demonstrates the emotional part of the song and the expressiveness of other instruments. The combination of all these instruments gives the song a polyphonic texture, which is common to most jazz songs played with several instruments. In order to use all these instruments very well, the vertical arrangement of the sound has to be done.

The second musical element we are going to discuss is the harmony of the song. Harmony refers to diatonic tonality such as minor or major, modulation, and chords. While listening to this song at the concert, the harmony was very clear, which made the tonality very enjoyable to listen to. According to Jazz Guitar, “Blue Bossa is in the key of C minor, on bars 1 to 8 and 13 to 16 use the C minor scale or C blues scale. On the G7 alt you can play a C harmonic minor scale or a G altered scale.” Which explains how all the instruments used produce a great tonality. In addition to that, Jazz Guitar said there is a modulation to Db major on bar 9 that lasts until bar 12, which is a regular II- V- I and which can be played with the Db major scale. All these aspects fit together to create a good melody shape.

The third musical element we are going to talk about is the melody of the song. Melody refers to the intonation, modulation, embellishment, etc. Blue Bossa is a mix of several instruments. The melody shape of the song starts with the bass line introduction, which continues throughout the entire piece. What is good about the melody shape of Blue Bossa is the fact that the bass line can be traded for a different arrangement with percussive piano. But that was not the intention of Kenny because he wrote a piece that went against the very nature of common jazz shape. According to Rachel Bronstein, “The laid-back Blue Bossa that sits behind the beat is not the composition Kenny imagined. He heard a piece with drive, vigor, and syncopation.” Which reveals that the melody shape of the Blue Bossa is not just about the oft-forgot bass line, but something new that Kenny wanted to create in order to contribute to the jazz revolution. That is the reason why throughout the song, changes in volume are significant, which leads us to the dynamic.

The last musical element we are going to explore is the dynamic of Blue Bossa. Dynamic refers to articulation, changes in volume, and the volume of individual notes of even whole songs etc. While listening the Blue Bossa, at the beginning we can feel the power of the dynamic track. It begins with the volume of individual notes from the trumpet and bass line, and after few seconds, the changes in volume become more intense with bass, piano and guitar. The way the drums was playing made the audience more focus on the orchestras because it’s a musical instrument that grabs people’s attention easily. The articulation, the volume of each instrument at the beginning and during the song make everybody feel lucky to be part of the concert. The combination of all these elements has made this song great jazz music.

Today music has an important role in our society. That is why it is very important for everybody to know what famous musicians have done to get people’s attention, to touch them in a good way, or to teach them something. But to reach those goals it is very important to make music that is going to be great to listen to with a good combination of different musical elements such as melody, dynamics, and harmony. This will allow people to really understand and learn what they should learn while listening to the music. That is pretty much what Kenny Dorham has done with Blue Bossa. He used several jazz musical elements to reach his goal, which was to contribute to humanity by using his trumpet skills to create a new jazz composition that can be used by beginners to practice improvisation over chords. Many music orchestras like Waubonsee Jazz combo still used Kenny’s chord changes because they are slow and have an easy-to-follow harmony. The song’s modulation is also easy to follow harmony, which allows beginners to practice several techniques of being a good musician. To finish, I would say that I am happy that this assignment allows me to attend this concert because Blue Bossa by Kenny Dorham is a great jazz composition with a good story behind it, a great song to listen to at a concert, and a great song to analyze and learn about jazz history.