Jazz at Puget SoundJazz: America's music. Of the many contributions this country has made to the musical traditions of the world, we are known best for jazz. At the University of Puget Sound, jazz appears in many guises, including ensembles directed by School of Music Faculty, a student organization, guest artists, master classes, and academic courses. University Jazz BandDirector: Syd Potter A fully instrumented “big band,” the Jazz Band performs music from all eras in formal and informal settings. In addition to frequent campus concerts, the group has appeared at the Seattle Opera House Annual Kent-Meridian Jazz Festival and the Western International Band Clinic. Guest artists are featured regularly with the Jazz Band and have included Fred Hersch, Ray Brown Trio, T.S. Monk, Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D'Rivera, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Cleo Laine, Johnny Dankworth, Jon Faddis, Marcus Roberts, Ellis Marsalis, Louis Bellson, David Benoit, Keiko Matsui, the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Stanley Turrentine, Ernestine Anderson, Ed Shaughnessy, Poncho Sanchez, Janis Ian, and Nnenna Freelon. Underground Jazz,
ASUPS Student OrganizationBegun in 1997 with a handful of students, “UJ” now has well over two dozen members and two different ensembles. One group specializes in acappella, and the other group performs with standard jazz instrument accompaniment. They perform twice every year for the campus community and also opens for other music groups like the Grammy Award-winning Gospel Hummingbirds as well as on occasions for various university organizations. Most recently, Underground Jazz has opened for the vocal acappella group M-Pact. The ensemble usually has around 14 members which include four sopranos, four altos, three tenors, and three basses with alternating vocal percussion. Jazz CombosDirector: Robert Hutchinson Performance in jazz combos offers students an essential opportunity to develop skills in improvisation and the split-second musical communication inherent in such an experience. Groups typically perform twice each semester in an intimate setting in the Rotunda at the Wheelock Student Center. Students wishing to perform in jazz combos must audition during the jazz ensemble auditions at the beginning of the year for placement in a group. Those who have auditioned may form their own groups or ask to be placed in one. Jazz combos are open to all students regardless of major. University CoursesJazz Theory and ImprovisationRobert Hutchinson Jazz Theory and Improvisation, is a course for serious music students wishing to gain a strong foundation in jazz improvisation. The semester begins with the learning of standard jazz melodic patterns. Then, week by week, students thoroughly learn ten jazz standards by mastering the melodies of these tunes on their instruments and the harmonic progressions on the piano. Additionally, students have weekly improvisation assignments on these jazz standards. Different approaches are taken: application of jazz "licks" to II-V-I progressions, chord-scale relationships, and pentatonic approaches a just a few.
In addition to the playing portion, students are quizzed every other week on their aural recognition of ten classic jazz recordings. Over the course of the fifteen-week semester, students learn to identify the soloists and melodies of seventy different tunes.
Another component of the course is the transcription of four jazz solos, which the student must learn to play. After the student completes a transcription, he or she excerpts four to eight melodic patterns for application in improvisations. All the students share in this exchange of melodic patterns, which enriches the vocabulary of everyone in the class.
The culminating experience is a public performance in the Rotunda in the Wheelock Student Center. Jazz HistoryGeoffrey Block This course is a historical survey that focuses on the principal elements and styles of jazz, its trends and innovators, and its sociology. The course is designed to develop a critical awareness, understanding, and appreciation of jazz. | 
