 Welcome to our end of the semester winter concert. I'm Paul Sookerman. This is the fall 23 jazz combo and we're really happy to be here tonight and because otherwise we just be playing for ourselves. So we're really really glad that you're all here. It's a great audience and I appreciate especially appreciate this section over here dressing up. We're getting into the holiday spirit. That first song was Billy Strayhorn composition called Take the A Train or as we say in Sheboygan take the train A. Apparently it's supposed to be a true story that when Billy Strayhorn first met Duke Ellington he was going to Duke's place in Harlem and he said how do I get there and he said you must take the A train to get the sugar hill in Harlem and that became you must take the A train. That became the song. He wrote it on the train on the way to Duke's crib. So our next song is a Charlie Parker song. Charlie Parker is one of the founding presidents of Bebop and this is Yardbird Sweet. Does anybody tell me what a yard bird is? Chicken. Yeah that was that Charlie Parker's nickname was Yardbird and because he ate so much chicken. He ate chicken every day and that eventually was shortened to bird. You know hey bird bird is going to be playing with miles you know. Yeah dig it. So this is Yardbird Sweet. One, two, three, up. So that's Anthony Entrombone, Jay Sanalto, Fred on baritone sax. That is a normal sax. It isn't just like dropping it. Johnny Entrombes, Paige on the bass. I want to slow it down and do a song an early Bebop song from the mid-40s written by Cootie Williams and Thelonious Monk. This is round midnight. It's one of the saddest songs ever. I might need a minute. So that's that's sad. Two, three, four. This one is a Sammy Nestico composition. He was best known for being tied with the Count Basie Orchestra for about a decade and did the classic arrangements of so many of the Basie band hits from the late 50s through the 60s and mid 70s. This is from the Basie play I'm sorry the Basie Straight Ahead album. This is Switch In Time. And at no time does it ever switch in time. Do another Count Basie song but this was from another composer that was also closely identified with the Basie band, Neil Hefty. I was kind of a weird kid. Suspended disbelief. And my first album was Basie plays Hefty and Neil Hefty most people know him because he wrote he did the music for the Batman TV series and he wrote a lot of other music but this is one that he's particularly well known for. It's a drum feature and that was on Basie plays Hefty. This is Coot and we're going to feature Johnny on Rushes. Putting the the set list together and Anthony recommended he said you know we're not really doing any Christmasy stuff any holiday stuff and you know it's still kind of great pumpkin season. You know my favorite Vince Coraldi tune you know we all know and that stuff and the skating music you know. He said my favorite is the great pumpkin waltz and the concert isn't too far away from Halloween and I said yeah man so this is our arrangement of the great pumpkin waltz. This is based on a true story about this pumpkin. I'll talk to you about that. My next piece is a Herbie Hancock song. In the 60s we started to see jazz resemble more forms of rock and roll in a little bit in terms of less stuff that's swung and more stuff that's straight eight you know rock beats is also influenced by the the huge explosion of Brazilian music the bossa nova and the samba in the late 50s and this is Herbie Hancock's Maiden voyage. One, two, one, two, two. Funky with you is a horror silver tune called the Jody Grind and I don't know what that is. I'm going to finish up with a George Duke composition that was recorded in the 70s by a Brazilian trombone player named Raul de Souza and he played an instrument that was it's called a super bone and it's a combination valve and slide trombone so it's kind of cheating but he was really big for about 15 minutes and two or three really heavy selling albums here in the United States and then went back to Brazil I think and he like bought a photo mat or something but this is Daisy May, four bars of me, eight bars of us. Right back with the vocal jazz ensemble in just one second. We're originally going to do any music for the holidays but they all showed up looking like this. What are you going to do? Here's a mentally arranged by Tina Chin. I know you'll know all of the songs and if you want to sing along, I don't care. So we were deciding to what else to put in the program. You know, holiday music, Christmas music especially, you know, you've got you know some the beautiful ballads, Christmas cards, and then you have, not much in between. You know, every now and then you get a pop song that doesn't make you crazy, you know, but we decided to at least go with one of the best-known uptempo songs but in a little bit different style. This is a 50s doo-wop version of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and features our basses and and and our Fred. Fred is his own section. Any of you know Fred? Our next song is a Rogers and Hart song from the Musical Higher and Higher but most people know it as recorded by Miles Davis. This is a kind of an introspective ballad. It never entered my mind. Our next song is a Berry Gordy song. You recognize it from the Jackson Five, Mariah Carey, and us. Our final song needs no introduction. You all know it. Feel free to bob your heads and throw the horns and whatever else you're going to do. We're going to feature Colin O'Dwane on the guitar. He's been singing it with us all semester and then yesterday he came and said, you know, I could play the guitar. Oh, you can't, can you? How come you've made me do it for the last eight weeks? Matter of fact, he could play it with or without the antlers. Quick thank our campus CEO Jamie Schramm and TV8 for being here to videotape and our department head Dr. Christy Talbot who's in Guadalajara tonight. I thank all of you for being here tonight. We're very grateful that you came and quite a few of these people are community members so if you want to sing and you want to come and join us please do. We'd love to have you. Reach out to me and find out how you can do that. But thank you very much and we'll see you in April or May.