Night of Jazz

Trinity’s annual Night of Jazz has been a long running tradition at Trinity with a Jazz concert held each Spring.

Jazz in Trinity

The Jazz Ensembles perform and travel to various jazz festivals, contests and performances, which require entry fees, travel expenses, and food.

This course provides basic instruction in jazz-related rhythm, tone, style, concept, listening skills, woodwind doubling possibilities and improvisation. The ultimate goal of this ensemble is to give interested students an opportunity to study and perform jazz ensemble literature.

Ensemble performance, stylized in the modern big band setting. Developing skills such as playing, singing or vocalizing, harmony, rhythm and style interpretation through many styles of music. Swing, Rock, Blues, Latin, Funk and Modern Fusion are to be the focus through our library of arrangements. Fundamental skills development in music theory and improvisation. 

History of Jazz

First, a little history on Jazz. Just like any other form of music or art, it’s not like one day there was no jazz and then the next day, poof, it was there. There was a progression and an evolution of the sound. Jazz was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It grew from roots in the popular African-American styles of music: blues and ragtime. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, and improvisation. Jazz is often called “one of America’s original art forms.”

Since its birth, jazz has become one of the most popular styles of music around the world and has spawned many different styles within the genre, like bebop, hard bop, free jazz, jazz fusion and many more. One of the key characteristics of any style of jazz is improvisation, which means spontaneously playing new melodies over the repeating cycle of chord changes of a tune. This is what makes jazz so fresh, unique, evolving and timeless.

Jazz in Music Education

The modern jazz ensemble is a pivotal group for any school music program. It broadens the students musical horizons and helps them learn to improvise, be confident in their playing and be a leader (because they may be the only one playing those notes, instead of, being one of several saxophones playing the same thing , for example.) It also helps young musicians with sight-reading. For these reasons, and many more, being in jazz band can help students of all ages, from middle school all the way through the collegiate level.