Skip to main content

Delta State’s Jazz Ensemble to present fall concert

By November 9, 2010General

The Delta State University Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Bret Pimentel, assistant professor of music at Delta State, will present its annual fall concert at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 16, in the Delta and Pine Land Theatre of the Bologna Performing Arts Center.

The Jazz Ensemble is an 18-piece “big band” made up of music majors and non-music majors selected by a process of competitive auditions.

Big band jazz is characterized by tightly coordinated, high-energy playing from a large horn section made up of trumpets, trombones, and saxophones, working in partnership with a powerful, driving rhythm section of guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums. Individual group members often perform solos that are “improvised”—composed spontaneously in live performance.

The Delta State Jazz Ensemble’s repertoire includes favorites from the Swing Era of the 1930’s and 1940’s as well as more contemporary jazz styles from the 1950’s to the present.

This year’s fall concert lineup includes classics from the repertoires of the Count Basie and Woody Herman bands, the Cuban-influenced bebop of Dizzy Gillespie, energetic funk-rock, and more, and will feature over a dozen talented soloists.

The concert is free and open to the public.