Tag: holidays

REVIEW: Blue Bop Jazz Orchestra Winter Concert

Himaja Leave a comment

When a band says they only rehearsed their set for two months, I do not expect the level of quality and pizzazz that I heard at the Blue Bop Jazz Orchestra’s Winter Concert last week.

The Blue Bop Jazz Orchestra is a student-run swing band at UM! As they warmed up in the Hussey Room at the Michigan League before the concert, I marveled at how they got the whole band to fit in such a tiny space, music stands and elbow room and all. The rhythm section was tucked away behind the piano so sadly from my seat I couldn’t see them very well. The advantage was that their sound truly filled the whole room.

They alternated between classic jazz pieces and holiday songs, lending each one a great interpretation of swing and mood. Complicated, syncopated rhythms are one of the trickiest parts of playing jazz music. The student leader/conductor of the band was also playing guitar, so the players only got a quiet count off at the beginning and then had to find their own way without a conductor for the rest of the piece. They did a fantastic job of it and had such a strong sense of rhythm with each other.

Improvisation is another defining element of jazz. I could never do improv but it’s one of my favorite things about jazz. It involves players spontaneously coming up with melodies over the chord progressions and accompaniment lines played by the rhythm section. It’s basically music composition on the spot!

The improv soloists were all so impressive. When a player was about to solo in the middle of a piece, they would stand up from their chair and rock the room for anywhere from a few seconds to a minute while the other sections backed them up, then sit back down to wild applause from the audience.

Overall I’m so glad I discovered this group and I cannot wait for their next concert. Their last piece of the evening was my favorite. I included a short clip of the beginning of it down below…let me know if you recognize the tune in the comments 🙂

REVIEW: ComCo Presents: Chest Hairs Roasting On An Open Fire

Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

Let me tell ya, folks, there is nothing like raunchy humor in improv comedy to really get you in the holiday spirit.

Before the show, instead of plum fairies or whatever on my mind, I thought only of finals and what the hell I was going to get my brother for Christmas. Afterwards, here I am in full St. Nick mode, my cheeks flushed, my voice jolly, my generousitity with baked goods at an all-time high. My mood has been lifted from its normal haunt (the gates of hell) up to the North Pole. I am only a little bit terrified of a future full evolution into that bearded chimney penetrator.

When I stepped into Angell Hall Auditorium A that evening I was shocked to find the crowd so large I couldn’t find a seat. Almost every event I review hosts a meager audience, sometimes no more than an infant’s handful of people showing up. It was refreshing to see so many people showing up to support the school’s longest-running comedy group.

The show was structured into several creative exercises they called games. There was I like my men like I like my _____, a chaptered story, another with characters who could only say the same two sentences, and others. While the scenes almost always slapped, the way they accepted suggestions from the audience wasn’t optimal. Often a repeated, audience-endorsed phrase would be ignored in favor of another they deemed usable. A true improv artist would never cherry-pick in this way. But regardless of this minor transgression, the group showed how deeply talented they are at coming up with often complex jokes and wordplay on the spot. I was most impressed with how long they kept up the full novel about the murderous reindeer, though they had to scrap a few chapters early on because they weren’t panning out well.

I’m sure it takes a lot of confidence to get on stage without a script and play a fool for a room of peers paying $2 a ticket. And I’m sure the power of making an entire audience dissolve into laughter from something you came up with a second ago is worth much more than most other pursuits. There are few opportunities like this that so fully improve the mood of everyone involved. It takes a certain kind of person to pull forward such powerful extroversion for a constructive use.

If you posess any rational thoughts at all, you will be wondering when the next Comco performance is. You’ll be able to attend another in mid-January after the semester begins, again in Angell Hall Auditorium A at 8pm.

 

 

REVIEW: ComCo

Gabriella

ComCo’s show last night featured nine ComCo players clad in ridiculously precious holiday sweaters to embody the winter/holidays/December spirit. With each player introducing themselves as “Carol” in the opening number only to sing a tune that mocked traditional Christmas caroling and music, the Carols brought great joy and laughter to the full house at Angel Hall’s Auditorium A.
While many of my favorite jokes are too dirty for me to repeat, ComCo not only excels in crude humor but simple humor anyone can laugh at. In a game called “four square” where different scenes are assigned to players two at a time based on suggestions from the audience, “sand” came to give life to a story of a man and woman growing sand in order to make a profit, and describing their frustrations when the sand wouldn’t grow. While trivial and somewhat elementary, the absurdist nature of much of the sketches and games makes the show lie on a high level of fun.
My favorite game the players do is “I like my men like I like my blank,” which uses audience suggestions to fill in the blank and then explain in the tag line of the sentence. For example, “I like my men like I like my sandwich—covered in mayo.” Many responses used hilarious euphemisms in order to complete the sentence.
Another crowd favorite was a segment where one player would be the hands for another player speaking. Somehow the two men, a foreign exchange student and his host father, ended up in the Arb looking for a Christmas tree to chop down for their home. This in itself was particularly funny considering cutting down a tree in the Arb would just be something someone would never do. The physical comedy this game lends itself to let the audience see the bodies of two people figuratively hopping and chopping on an imaginary tree. Quite comedic material here.
At the end of the show the ComCo players lovingly tossed an assortment of stuffed animals and plastic toys into the audience for their appreciation of attendance. I earned a toy Sully from Monsters, Inc. While this was the material reward for attending the show, I also earned the nonmaterial award of joy: a full 90 minutes of holiday laughter and cheer.
I recommend going to the next ComCo show and every one after that if you have not yet. It’s truly a great experience that’s all about making the audience feel good, and of course, laugh.