Analysis of Jazz Concert at University of Colorado

This paper critiques the Conference on World Affairs Jazz concert held on the Tuesday of 11th April, 2017. The concert is a long-lasting tradition in the University of Colorado where world class musicians from around the world showcase their talent for the audience in Macky Auditorium on the Tuesday of CWA week. The concert is free for the public but people can reserve tickets in advance by donating to the CWA. The organizers distribute tickets via a lottery system and the concert recordings are available all year round.

In the 2017 CWA Jazz Concert, the performers included Prof. Braid Good, the director of CWA Jazz director, Bijoux Barbosa, the bassist, Hellen Delarosa, the fantastic drummer, Ronny Barack, the percussionist, Adrian Farouja, the pianist, Claire Delis, the baritone saxophonist, Andy Whites, saxophonist, Kanaan Osman, and Cyril  Aimee. As established, the concert’s title is the 2017 CWA Jazz Concert. All the performers in the concert underwent professional training in music and specialized in different musical instruments or art. Also, it was obvious that they had some extensive experience in the jazz and music as well based on their age. In this case, their physical appearance provided information about their age. They concert was orchestral in nature.

My attendance to the concert was more of luck than a premeditated action. I had visited a friend who schools at the University of Colorado for two weeks. He had won a ticket for the concert and purposed to attend event. However, he could not make it to the concert because of personal commitments. Since I always fancied attending such events, I bought the ticket from him for fifteen dollars. Besides, I always wanted to see Bijoux Barbosa on the bass since I was twelve.

As the title dictates, the performers played only jazz music in whole concert. To begin the night, all performance participated in the warming up process before Claire introduced the first main performance in the old temptations tune where she expressed her feelings about cloud nine. Mister Whites also introduces a performance on velocity, a song that was so fast that one cannot really count the measure of the beats. One could feel the energy, he called the feeling the quantum physics of energy in music. The music dynamics for the night varied a lot. It moved from slow to fast to moderately slow ballad. In the same way, the tempos of the songs differed. However, my attention was mainly pegged on Barbosa’s performs, especially where he shifted to the bass guitar, my favorite instrument.

The performance had the best interpretation of songs. In fact, they had composed all the songs, which they performed for the night. The composer of each piece had to introduce it to the audience by explaining its context. Everyone was amused when Hellen Delarosa introduced her composed piece.  You see, not many drummers can proudly say they composed music. All performance did a fantastic job on their instruments. The pianist also showed a lot of expertise in his handling of the chords, the riffs, and the crunch chords in music.

The whole concert was awesome, however the performance by Mr. Whites on velocity and Hellen Delarosa, on her song titled they have forgotten the truth were most interesting. Cyril Aimee, also came out as a very talented musician. She composed a full “Choral” piece on stage. On listening to the full piece, it seemed like several other musicians contributed to the performance.  The musicians performed balanced pieces where they allowed all music instruments to alternate in dominance at different levels.  As such, the audience could establish the prowess with which the performers passed their message. At some point, one could not help but close his or her eyes in an attempt to feel the depth of the music. The music was speaking to the soul and relaxing the inner most strained emotional muscles. Cyril also did everyone a favor with her super voice and therapeutic tune in I Wish You Love song. I could not hear French the song was fantastic especially with the bass, piano, and saxophone playing in the background.

To sum it up, the CWA Jazz concert was one of the most enjoyable concerts that I have attended. Even if the concert was commercial and attendees had to pay to book their place, I would not mind spending on such an experience. In fact, I am actively looking for the 2018 tickets at whatever the cost. I would invite some of my friends but they cannot be assured of a ticket given the increased demand. My enthusiasm for Jazz concert was rekindled by the CWA concert. Although the subsequent ones failed to outdo the CWA Concert, it is still refreshing to listen to the music showcasing.

Works Cited

2017 CWA Jazz Concert (2961). Dir. G. Braid. Perf. CWA Jazz Artists. 2017. Live. .