Jazz Quintet

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We open our 2024-25 season with a jazz concert, led by one of our own violinists – Tom Sykes. He and his jazz group Nay will be performing songs from the American Song Book, and he will be joined by Naomi Sykes, Lee Webber, Brian Rennie and Tony Lunnev, with Tom on the piano.

Tom writes:

“Quintet Nay and jazz performance

Quintet Nay is the quintet version of Trio Nay, which was formed almost ten years ago after I was introduced to jazz singer Naomi Sykes (no relation!) by her future husband, bassist Lee Webber (a former student of mine). For the September concert we will be joined by saxophonist Brian Rennie and drummer Tony Lunney. If you are unfamiliar with how jazz performance works, here is a brief overview.

 

We will be performing what are known as jazz standards, which are from the ‘great American songbook’ of songs written by ‘Tin Pan Alley’ songwriters of the first half of the twentieth century such as the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. Many of these songs were originally written for musical theatre but due to their musical structure (the refrains are usually 32 bars long) and chord progressions, jazz musicians found that they were particularly suited for improvisation, even though some of the composers were not happy about their carefully crafted melodies being changed!

 

Naomi knows the songs well, along with the keys that are comfortable for her – not always the original keys – and Lee and I use chord sheets, with Brian using chord sheets transposed for the sax. From the chord symbols on these I can play the chords to accompany Naomi and Lee can create bass lines. Even while accompanying, there is a lot of improvisation going on in the rhythm section: I can play the chords in numerous ways on the piano, and in songs with a ‘swing’ feel Lee improvises a walking bass line. Tony will play drum patterns in keeping with the rhythmic feel and tempo, sometimes adding improvised ‘fills’ in gaps at the end of sections, with Brian possibly adding some countermelodies.

 

Once Naomi has sing through a song, Brian and I will take it in turns to play improvised solos based on the chords and following the 32-bar form. Lee and Tony might feel inspired to take solos too! There is no pre-planning with these; the solos may happen in a different order from one song to another and there is quite a bit of visual communication between us that will determine what will happen next. After the solos Naomi will sing the same lyrics again, but often with subtle differences in phrasing and even in the melody, which is another form of improvisation. We will end in a (hopefully) suitable way, following jazz conventions – introductions and endings are pre-planned to some extent, but endings can sometimes stray from this in the heat of the moment!

 

The spontaneity of jazz is what makes it exciting, for both the musicians and, hopefully, the audience. If you are new to jazz, I hope that this short description of what happens when we perform has uncovered some of its mystery. If you would like to get a flavour of what to expect in September you can visit our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@trionay1327

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