UCSB Jazz Ensemble Winter Concert

UCSB Jazz Ensemble – Sing Sang Sung: Celebrating the Voice!

The UCSB Jazz Ensemble explores the Identity of the Human Voice in jazz performance in this concert featuring music with voice, about song, otherwise vocally inspired. As the first jazz musician, Louis Armstrong both sang and played an instrument, and firmly established doubled edge sword of jazz performance.

Featuring music by Gordon Goodwin, James Brown/John Daversa, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Steve Wonder/Chris Walden, Queen Latifah/John Clayton, Pat Metheny, and others, this concert showcases the vocal talents of Atalia Zahrndt, Jenn Lam, Irene Chaey, and Julianne Varona and some of the outstanding instrumentalists of the UCSB Jazz Ensemble program.

Works to be performed include Pat Metheny’s “Song for Bilbao”, Gordon Goodwin’s “Sing Sang Sung”, and John Daversa’s epic arrangement of James Brown’s “Living in America”, originally written for his “Dreamers” DACA inspired big band recording. Our talented vocalists will also perform such standards as “We’ll Be Together Again” as originally performed by Dianne Schuur and the Count Basie Orchestra, “I love Being Here with You,” a swinging version of “Out of Nowhere”, and a beautiful treatment of Billy Strayhorn’s masterpiece, “Lush Life.” Also featured will be a performance of Kenny Garrett’s modern jazz standard “Sing a Song of Song”, play by an advanced combo directed by drummer (and UCSB staff member) Matt Perko.