The Jazz Cats and Saint Xavier Jazz Ensemble will be holding their first Jazz Night of the semester on Feb. 23 from 7:30 P.M. to 9 P.M. in McGuire Hall, where they will play jazz songs that members of the band have composed.
The price of admission will be $6, and $5 for all senior citizens and military veterans. All students, staff, and faculty can attend the concert for free, as long as they show their SXU ID.
For those who can’t attend in person, the performance will also be live-streamed on the Facebook page @sxujazz.
This first Jazz Night of the semester will be focused on a mix of jazz standards from jazz and the blues. The show will open with a performance from the Richards High School Jazz Ensemble. There will also be a performance from musician Matt Shevitz.
Matt Shevitz has been described as “an in-demand musician in the jazz, blues, and popular music scenes.” He has performed with musicians like Dick Hyman, Ignacio Berroa, and Frank Wess among others. He’s also performed at Chicago Blues Festival, Lollapalooza, and House Of Blues Chicago.
The concert will open with a performance from the Richard’s High School Jazz Ensemble. The ensemble is a club at Harold L. Richards High School that “Perform a variety of styles with a focus on swing music” according to the group’s website.
Both jazz groups have been around “forever” according to Dr. Shawn Salmon, director of jazz studies in the music department, who organized the concert. The Jazz Cats vary in size by semester. This iteration of the group is made up of, “guitar, bass, vibraphone, and drums.”
He described the Jazz Ensemble as, “a course that students interested in jazz and learning to perform in a small group setting can take.”
His instruction focuses on, “improvisation techniques, chord-scale relationships, and harmonic analysis. The goal of the class is to make these students able to sit in with any jazz group or feel empowered to start their own, and gig regularly.”
Semester round, Salmon works with jazz students, and teaches them, “how to perform jazz repertoire from what is known as the ‘”jazz standards,’”, classic compositions from swing, bebop, hard bop, fusion, and today.”
With the concert right around the corner, Salmon has high hopes for the performance. He stated that those in attendance can expect, “wonderful new music, performed by the coolest cats at SXU.”
Those who want to keep up with The Jazz Cats can do so via Instagram, @sxu.jazz.cats. Likewise, anyone who would like to join The Jazz Cats or the Jazz Ensemble in the future can take MUS-239 or Mus-240 during the Fall 2024 semester.