A night of jazz, juggling and jests by quintet C Street Brass graced students, faculty and staff in the Ford Chapel the night of Friday, Sept. 26.
C Street Brass, a brass quintet, were musicians-in-residence at Allegheny over the weekend. Before their two-act performance at 7:30 p.m., the quintet met with music classes during the day.
A crowd of approximately 50 filled the chapel pews. Audience members enjoyed the musical skill of the quintet.
“My favorite (piece) was ‘Lullabye,’” Cristina Watkins, ’29, said. “It made me tear up.”
C Street Brass’s set list for the night included pieces from American composers and pieces that highlighted the variety of music present in North and South America. Songs included “Lullabye” by Billy Joel, “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” a George Gershwin tune from 1935, selections from Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” and “Contrabajeando” by Astor Piazzolla.
C Street Brass is a unique quintet. Traditionally, quintets are for string musicians, like violinists, viola players and cellists. Even traditional jazz quartets or quintets typically include a woodwind, like a saxophone or clarinet, or a percussive instrument, such as the drums or the piano. C Street Brass’s five musicians, however, have mastered brass instead of the strings.
The players include founder Scott Nadelson, who plays trumpet and cornet; Micah Holt on trumpet, piccolo trumpet and cornet; Gabriel Colby, who plays trombone; Jon Carroll, who arranges some of their pieces and plays the french horn; and Hakeem Bilal on the bass trombone. Together, these five men create a unique, jazzy sound that has been heard around the world.
The group started in Nadelson’s dorm room at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, part of Johns Hopkins University. From there, they went on to hold residencies in six different states, as well as Washington, D.C., and are currently on tour. After their visit to Allegheny, they are headed to the west coast, where they will visit venues in Washington, Oregon and California.
Later in the year, they will travel to the Southwest to visit states such as Texas and New Mexico.
Despite being international travelers, C Street Brass is solidly connected to their collegiate roots. In fact, the band itself is named after a notable feature of their undergraduate campus.
“We all went to school at Peabody Conservatory, which is on Charles St. in Baltimore,” Colby said. “It (Charles St.) is the longest road and runs through campus, so we decided to name ourselves after it.”
“Plus, there’s a C Street in almost every city we play in,” added Bilal, laughing.
While at Allegheny, C Street Brass met with a variety of music classes, including the music seminar class and the upper-level private lessons students in Ford Chapel, where they discussed music and played a sample of their later show. That sample drew several interested students to the evening show.
“I play trombone myself,” Cady Gleason, ’29, said. “I just thought that it would be a really good opportunity to get out and listen to some music.”
This sentiment was echoed across the audience.
“I went to the performance seminar today,” Laura Obergefell, ’26, said. “They gave us just a taste of what they were going to play tonight, and I wanted to see some more.”
C Street Brass’s residency offered Allegheny students the opportunity to interact with musicians who have played in venues ranging from Carnegie Mellon University and The Juilliard School to performing arts series around the country to international trips to Georgia and Qatar, Allegheny offered some new experiences for C Street Brass as well.
“I enjoyed playing in this wonderful space,” Colby said. “And getting to work with the students. We started the band (C Street Brass) when we were in college, so now it is a full-circle moment.”
Other band members also enjoyed the experience of playing in Ford Chapel, a smaller venue that emphasizes the acoustics and provides a unique experience for performers.
“This particular piece (“Because,” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney) sounds really angelic on brass instruments,” Bilal said as he introduced the peice. “The timbre, the colors, the wash of sounds, especially in this beautiful space.”
C Street Brass’s residency was enjoyed by the performers and audience members alike. After finishing the final song in their set (a version of Consuelo Velazquez’s “Besame Mucho” arranged by Carroll), the band received a standing ovation. Their encore, an arrangement of “Tonight” from “West Side Story,” also received a standing ovation.
C Street Brass’s arrangements and performance highlight the versatility of brass instruments and the voices that they can produce.
“I really liked ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So,’” Gleason said. “That trombone feature was really good. It was like you could hear him singing.”
