Cerritos College Jazz Band directed by Dr. David Betancourt hosts a Fall Exchange Concert on Oct. 16, 2024 at 7 p.m. in the Student Center.
The event featured the Artesia High School Jazz Band directed by Dr. Estaban Adame.
“Almost all of our concerts we do are exchange concerts. I have a very good connection and collaboration with all of the high schools in the area,” Dr. Betancourt said.
“What I do is I let them know well in advance that we’re having certain concerts and ask if they want to join us like tonight we were able to get Artesia to play with us tonight” He explained.
The Artesia high school jazz band started with an introduction of an arrangement of Recordame by Joe Henderson. The soloist for the arrangement included Jacqueline Archiga on tenor saxophone and Ethan Rubalcaba on trumpet.
They later continued with an arrangement of Ran Kan Kan by Tito Puentes which had open solos.
Many of the arrangements composed for the concert were from the genre’s jazz, swing and jazz fusion. These elements of music played a role in the overall mood for the night going forward.
“Ideally the students should all be improvising. The biggest challenge overall is usually giving the students a opportunity to prepare music for a performance most times can be difficult for students and the trade off can be hard sometimes.” Adame said.
As the concert progressed, the Cerritos College jazz band did an arrangement of West Coast Premier by musical composer, Garth Drozin, who also was in attendance of the fall exchange concert.
Before introducing the particular song “West Coast Premier,” Dr. Betancourt mentioned that the majority of the composed music made by Garth Drozin are over 40 years old and haven’t been heard by the public.
The night continued with the Cerritos College Jazz Band playing a piece by Alan Jay Lerner and Fredrick Loewe called “Almost Like Being In Love” arranged by Dave Wolpe.
As the event came to an end, Dr. Betancourt gave students from Artesia High School an opportunity to go on stage to close out the concert with the Cerritos College Jazz Band with solos.
“Curating the bands together is such a great collaboration for both the high school and students. We get to hear each play, the high school students get to hear the progression at the college level and get to play for a bigger audience. It’s really a win win situation for everyone,” Dr. Betancourt said.
The Cerritos College Jazz Band closed out the concert event with a song by George Clinton, one of the innovators of funk music along with Bootsy Collins and Jerome Bailey called “Give Up The Funk” arranged by Ralph Ford.
