On Feb. 25, the Delta Jazz Percussion performed at Atherton Auditorium.
The first group, directed by Michael Rocha, an adjunct associate professor at Delta, performed a total of five songs: “A Night in Tunisia,” “C Jam Blues,” “Famous Don’t Pay the Rent,” “Mack the Knife,” and “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”
Due to a recent illness of one of the trumpet players, Michael Rocha filled in and played with the ensemble.
With one of the longest solos of the night, trumpet player Osi Latu, a freshman at Delta College, gave us his thoughts on his performance and the concert in general.
“I’m not going to lie, at first, it was a little nerve-racking, cause of school being out for the heat, and then we just had all kinds of stuff, hiccups and stuff, and we had four or five weeks to rehearse, not too long,” said Latu. “So I was a little nervous going into it, but I trust everyone in the band, so I think we did well tonight. When you look at it on paper, it doesn’t look that long, and then you play, and it feels like it’s dragging on forever…Honestly, performing it for the first time live, I think I could do better, but I mean, we have three more shows to do.”
The second jazz ensemble that was played that night was directed by Brian Kendrick, professor and director of Jazz Studies.
The second group performed a total of six songs, before closing out on a surprise addition by Kendrick: “Belly Roll,” “Opus De Funk,” “Body and Soul,” “A Mis Abuelos,” “Cottontail” and closing with “Just Kidding.” More than 100 people attended the performance.
One of the audience members, Aliyah Martinez, a freshman at Delta College, was there to support her sister, who was the bassist.
“They did really good tonight. Expectations are always really high, and they always exceed them. I thought it was really cool today,” said Martinez.
Before the concert ended, Kendrick took the time to call the names of every student on stage to acknowledge their hard work and how proud he was to have worked with them.
He also stated that the Jazz Percussion would be performing for College Hour in the quad or by the koi pond, if anyone wanted to stop by and listen.
“Over the years, we just had so many great percussion. I have to admit, there’s a lot of great ones here, and I’m really excited of the outcome of the school here,” said Kendrick. “Thank you so much again for all being here tonight. Really appreciate it, and I know that we had a great time playing music for you.”
