Dr. Abbie Brown directs Pacific’s jazz band in this year’s Fall Jazz Nite
In spite of only being in her second year directing Pacific’s jazz band, Dr. Abbie Brown is already making an impact with her students. Whether it is allowing her students to help pick the pieces they’ll perform at Jazz Nite or encouraging them to have fun with their music, Brown has quickly become a positive force for musicians at Pacific.
Brown is not the typical director who chooses the entire concert program for her musicians, or at least not for jazz band. She jokes that while she may be more “tyrannical” when curating a program for symphonic band, which she also has experience directing, with the jazz band she has adopted a “collaborative process.”
“With the jazz band, the way that we run our semester is that we spend the first two weeks of classes just reading through as much music as we can,” she explains. This semester students read over twenty pieces, which were later narrowed down to ten or twelve. Students then exercise their voices in the program selection. Brown allows them to take the time to listen to recordings of the pieces and vote on which ones they would most like to work with.
Students give online feedback and ratings for each piece based on how much they like it. This gives them a stronger say in what music their semester will be focused on, with Brown still making the ultimate decision but with much consideration to her students.
This process allows the students to take the reins a little more in their experience, something Brown confesses can be hard for her as a director, especially in jazz band. “I’m used to being the one on the box and waving the stick around and being a total control freak,” she says. “With the jazz band, yeah, I’ve had rehearsals where I had to get a stool out, and sit my little butt down, and sit on my hands so I can’t move, and I’m just listening.” However, as she has become better at letting go, her students have shown her that they can be successful in directing themselves.
Together, Brown and the jazz band have selected a wide variety of pieces to share with the audience. This includes standards from more well-known jazz composers like Gordon Goodwin, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Sammy Nestico, and contemporary composers like Paul Baker and Ahmad Jamal.
A piece that Brown is particularly excited to share with the audience on the fifteenth is “Samba Ti Kaye” by Mark Taylor, one of the Latin pieces that will be performed. Bright, elegant, and engaging, this piece contains compelling builds and will serve as an excellent closer for the night
“With this one,” she says, “it’s not as much storytelling as the symphonic band in particular, but it’s mainly just creating kind of the essence of the piece. And really more enjoying being in that different genre.”
Joy is one of the key lessons Brown incorporates into jazz band. She even jokes that her students must be enjoying the music selection more than last year. “I must have gotten closer to what they really like to play because I know I’m saying it less than I did last year, but I found myself saying a lot last year ‘Guys, I have zero interest in having us play music that you don’t like.’”
This time around, Brown doesn’t have to remind her students to have fun, which is something students can often forget while getting caught up in the pressure of college. “I just want it to be fun,” Brown exclaims. “My god, it’s music, if we’re not having fun we’re messing it up. That isn’t the point, the point is to have fun the whole time… the whole thing should be enjoyable in some way because we’re getting to connect in one of our most beautiful languages.”
Fall Jazz Night is Sunday, November 5, 3 – 5 pm at McCready Hall – Taylor-Meade Performing Arts Center
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