Head of the Lakes Jazz Festival: Ben There, Done That
Ingrid Jensen and quintet performing at Friday's Head of Lakes Jazz Festival Concert. Photo by Ben Carpenter
This past weekend was the 51st Annual UMD Head of the Lakes Jazz Festival. The Jazz Festival began in 1973 through the work of John C. Smith with a philosophy of providing a positive environment for high school jazz ensemble students to learn and perform. UMD also selects world class performers as guest artists who are experienced clinicians and educators.
On Friday, March 21 I attended the first of two concerts that weekend. Friday’s concert featured Canadian jazz trumpet player Ingred Jensen performing with a quintet. Jensen’s career spans over 30 years in which she has released CDs, collaborated with jazz orchestras of Maria Schneider and Darcy James Argue, has performed on SNL and been a part of multiple projects that won awards.
The quintet also included saxophone performer Brian Perez, percussionist Dr. David Schmalenberger, Department Head and Director of UMD Jazz Studies Ryan Frane on piano and double bassist Gordan Lewis.
Jazz music is not necessarily my favorite kind of music to listen to. I prefer to experience it in a more casual setting, like a bar or club, or as background noise in a film. Overall though, I enjoyed getting to experience this group of musicians in a concert setting.
I’m always impressed by a jazz musician's ability to improvise. As a trombone player myself, I have never learned the skill of improvising. I’m astonished by the mind of a jazz musician, I think their level of talent and creativity is incredible.
The quintet performed four songs, at least I think they did. Sometimes it seems that a jazz song can just blend right into the next. I enjoyed the abstract musical elements of the second piece they performed. At the beginning and end of the song, Jensen played her trumpet aimed into the opened piano, Frane was rapping his fingers on the top of the piano and there were overall discombobulated sounds coming from the other musicians.
The last piece the quintet performed included audience participation with hand clapping. One aspect of a jazz concert I like is that it can be less serious than wind ensemble concerts by getting the audience involved. As a musician myself, I’m always afraid the audience will clap off beat. It shows that music can come from the sounds outside of the musicians themselves.
Ben Carpenter is the writer behind Ben There, Done That — a column dedicated to reviewing fine art shows at UMD and around Duluth.
When addressing the audience before their last song, Jensen emphasized the importance of music in our lives and for musicians to put themselves out there.
“All sounds are good. Don’t be hard on yourself,” Jensen exclaimed. “Have fun, be you.”
Along with the concert on Friday, there was also the “JAM Duluth Jazz Crawl,” inspired by the crawl at the Eau Claire Jazz Festival. This jazz crawl is a new event this year for the “JAM Concert Series”.
The Jazz Crawl transformed the Lincoln Park Craft District into a New York Jazz Scene with 18 bands that played across six separate venues. Saturday was day two of the Head of the Lakes Jazz Festival with a concert featuring Ingrid Jensen and the UMD Jazz Ensembles I and II in Marshall Performing Arts Center (MPAC).
This year, 14 schools from across Minnesota and Wisconsin participated in the Jazz Festival. For young performers out there, many ensembles participate in the daytime events in which they perform, get critiqued and attend some of the clinics offered by educators from around the nation, as well as guest artists and UMD faculty.