SUNY Oswego music professors Rob Auler (piano), Trevor Jorgensen (saxophone), and Eric Schmitz (drums) with senior music major Max McKee (bass) combine jazz standards and original compositions to create an album in the style of their weekly public jams.

9 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Traditional Jazz Combo, JAZZ: Mainstream Jazz



Details:
Aspiring jazz musicians can find it difficult to hone their skills in a real-world setting, since jazz clubs that might sponsor jam sessions have mostly disappeared from Americaâs downtowns. Our intention in forming the Oswego Jazz Project (OJP) in early fall 2006
was to provide an opportunity for our university students and community members to play jazz with a faculty quartet in a public jam session setting on a weekly basis. The core of the OJP consists of SUNY music professors Rob Auler (piano), Trevor Jorgensen (saxophone) and Eric Schmitz (drums) and senior music major Max McKee (bass). In August, we approached the management at King Arthurâs Steakhouse in downtown Oswego with the idea of holding our jam session there every Wednesday night â they said yes. Weâve been playing there ever since.

In preparation for our weekly gig, we decided to focus on âstandardsâ â that is, time-tested classics from the pens of some of Americaâs greatest songwriters â George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, et al. Aside from the immense musical value of these pieces, they constitute a body of work with which jazz musicians are expected to be intimately familiar. In addition, we wanted to include some more recent compositions by noted jazz players (such as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins), which have become standards in their own right.
In order for jazz (or any other art form, for that matter) to survive, new contributions must be made. To this end, weâve included four original pieces on this album.

This recording documents some of the standards we have been playing for the past few months, as well as several new additions to our book. It was recorded âliveâ in the studio, with no overdubs and minimal editing, to achieve a sound as close as we could get to our weekly performances. We hope that you enjoy what you hear and will join us on Wednesday nights!