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CVMS students treated to Jazz Clinic in honor of Jazz Appreciation Month
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Mike Tomaro, Jazz Department Chair at Duquesne University, treated Canfield Village Middle School seventh-grade students to a saxophone solo of a classic, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” during a Jazz Clinic he hosted April 8.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Mike Tomaro, Jazz Department Chair at Duquesne University, hosted a Jazz Clinic for Canfield Village Middle School seventh-graders on April 8.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Canfield Village Middle School seventh-grade students participated in a call and response with Duquesne University Jazz Department Chair Mike Tomaro (left) during a Jazz Clinic on April 8.
By ABBY SLANKER
Canfield Village Middle School band teacher James Volenik wanted to give his students some insight on the musical stylings of jazz, so he invited Mike Tomaro, Jazz Department Chair at Duquesne University, to host a Jazz Clinic on April 8. In celebration of JAM, jazz appreciation month, band students in grades 6-8 were able discuss the jazz genre with Tomaro, and even play a few bars with him.
“Jazz is heavily based on improvisation where the musician creates the music on the spot using a series of chord progressions. Mr. Tomaro will show the students how to do call and response patterns and play the blues,” Volenik said.
Tomaro is a graduate of Duquesne and has been playing since he was in seventh grade.
“I started playing in seventh grade, just like these kids here today. I graduated from Duquesne in 1980 and moved to Washington D.C. to play in the U.S. Army Band ‘Pershing’s Own’ until 1997 when I moved back to the Pittsburgh area and replaced my own band director at Duquesne. I was a local boy coming home,” Tomaro said.
Tomaro began his presentation by telling the students jazz is everywhere and is actually a young music compared to classical music.
“Jazz music is everywhere. You don’t have to go to a jazz concert to hear it. It’s even in the background of many commercials you see on TV. Jazz started in 1900 and is a very young music genre compared to classical music,” Tomaro said.
Tomaro told the students there are three major styles of jazz - Dixieland Jazz, Hard Bop Jazz and Latin Jazz.
“Louis Armstrong was the first jazz soloist. He was the first great one. There was no one to teach him and he improvised, which means he made the music up as he went along. He is a very, very important man in the jazz genre,” Tomaro told the students.
Tomaro then played a recording of a three-minute Dixieland Jazz song for the students.
Next, Tomaro moved on to Hard Bop Jazz and played a recording of it for the students.
“Hard Bop Jazz came about in the 1950s and is like a march - a blues march. The instrumentation changed a lot from Dixieland. It is really a happy and active music. I hope you were happy listening to it,” Tomaro said.
Tomaro told the students there are lots of styles of Latin Jazz. To help the students understand the style, he performed a solo of St. Thomas style on his soprano saxophone.
“A solo has a lot of physicality. You use a lot of energy. You noticed I closed my eyes while I played. When I do that I am shutting everything out and am able to concentrate. It takes a high level of thinking. I hope this music makes you move both inside and out. It is a very rhythmic music,” Tomaro told the students.
Tomaro then treated the students to a saxophone solo of a classic, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
“When you play jazz, you play a lot of emotion. There is sadness and beauty in jazz. There are lots of dynamics which help create the emotion,” Tomaro said.
To end his time with the students, Tomaro participated in a call and response session with them, during which he played several short pieces of music on his saxophone and then the students repeated it back to him with their instruments.
“Call and response is about the idea of listening and how we use our ears. We use basic songs and it is trial and error as we train our ears,” Tomaro said.