By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
David Bixler put the whole concert in the hands of the four graduate students in his jazz pedagogy class.
Kyle Brooks, Zakk Jones, Brad Billmaier, and Will Schneider were in charge of writing the music, assembling the band, rehearsing it, working with the venue, and getting all the gear in place.
Bixler has assigned similar projects for previous pedagogy class as well as his jazz arranging course. “It’s never been this intense,” he said.
The free concert by the specially assembled 14-piece ensemble will be presented Friday, April 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Arlyn’s Good Beer, 520 Hankey Ave. off Gorrell in Bowling Green.
This is a rain date – unfortunately no one took charge of the weather, so an earlier date had to be canceled. The forecast for Friday is for a return to more springlike weather.
Jones said that the show offers a rare opportunity for him and his colleagues. They have a large ensemble at their disposal, something they’d seldom have outside the school. And they get to hear music they wrote.
Because of restrictions on size of ensembles, the band has a unique configuration – a five-piece rhythm section, five brass, that includes Schneider’s French horn, and four saxophones.
That unusual instrumentation, Bixler noted, meant all the music had to be arranged specifically for this date. The four students, he said, “were super into it.”
Each of them wrote two charts, a mix of originals and arrangements of other people’s tunes.
Billmaier, a percussionist, reached back into the jazz shadows to pull out the tune “De-Dah,” by pianist and composer Elmo Hope. Neither Hope nor his tune are well known, and that was the drummer’s point. “I want to give props to the old masters and some of the unsung heroes,” he said.
He wanted to do something outside the usual repertoire. He couldn’t find any large band versions of this, and had to transcribe the music from Hope’s recording. “De-Dah,” like scores of jazz tunes, is based on the chord progression from the George Gershwin standard “I Got Rhythm.” But, Billmaier said , it takes a harmonic liberties that make for interesting sonorities.
His other piece is an original, “Steep Incline,” that breaks out of expected norms. He describes the piece “heavy metal mambo.”
Jones also crosses genres on his original “Black Rose,” dedicated to his grandparents. “It’s Americana meets folk meets modern jazz.”
He also arranged the old standard “Moonlight Becomes You,” which opens with a dreamy free section and calls on Schneider to play conch – yes, the seashell.
Schneider said that fits into the ethos of the concert. The show is “steeped in jazz tradition of swing as well deviating into other sounds and qualities.”
His own pieces include a waltz and a laid back contemporary funk groove.
Brooks composed his originals in the past month. He dug deep into the tradition. His up-tempo “All But Abandoned” draws on the music of Duke Ellington and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. The title of his other tune, “Bacon Fat,” says all the listener needs to know. It’s a slow blues inspired by B.B. King’s guitar style.
Brooks is a saxophonist who was drawn to BGSU for graduate studies because he wanted to study with Bixler.
Billmaier, a recent graduate University of Toledo, said he’d always loved the BGSU program, and he would travel to BG to join the weekly jam sessions.
“It’s kind of our official home,” Billmaier said.
Opened early last year, the microbrewery managed to keep going through the pandemic because of its large outdoor space.
While BGSU music venues are closed to audiences, this gives jazz musicians a chance to play for in-person listeners.
It’s a welcomed throwback to pre-pandemic times, Bixler said.
“It’s a fantastic space for the event,” Billmaier said. “We’re just happy to have a place to play.”
