Annual VU Jazz Festival lets students get in the swing

Valparaiso University’s annual Jazz Festival gives high school students a chance to learn from the pros as well as to perform onstage.

Scores of students from jazz ensembles in Lake and Porter counties were invited to perform during the four-night festival, which ends Friday.

Festival director Bob Lark, director of jazz studies at VU, is all jazzed up about the festival.

About 16 to 18 members of the VU Jazz Ensemble will perform. “The nice thing is they get to work with the pros at the festival,” Lark said.

Each night, the festival gives two or three area high schools a chance to perform onstage somewhere besides their own school. Before the professional musicians perform, the pros lead the younger players in a workshop, giving them some pointers they might not get from their own band instructors.

David Lee, director of bands at Hebron High School, appreciates the chance to participate in the festival.

He did so himself, as a VU student and alumnus. “It was a wonderful experience,” he said.

“I’m glad it’s not competitive,” Lee said. “It’s totally educational.”

Jesse Rayburn, a VU freshman from Mount Prospect, Illinois, is a mechanical engineering major. He plays trumpet with the VU Jazz Ensemble, which is playing Friday night. “It’s just good music. It’s so freeing, so different from everything else,” he said.

Olivia Sobel, a freshman from Elburn, Illinois, is studying music education. Violin is her main instrument, but she plays guitar and vibraphone with the Jazz Ensemble. “I like the freedom of improvisation,” she said. “I like to have a time to speak through my instrument. I like to feel the groove.”

“Jazz covers such a broad spectrum of music,” Lark said. “At its core, it’s swing and especially improvisation.”

That doesn’t mean absolute freedom. Musicians still work within the guardrails. “There’s a key, there’s a structure.”

Lark has performed with a large number of professionals over the decades. His first job post-college, he was leading a summer jazz camp in Emporia, Kansas. He was as much a student as a teacher, learning from pros who performed with Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

“A lot of the people in jazz just seem to be laid back and relaxed,” he said. When that first drumbeat hits to start the concert, though, it’s time to set the joking aside and get down to business.

Lark hopes the high school students will learn to feel free to loosen up before their performance begins.

He took over the Jazz Festival three years ago following his retirement from DePaul University. “The Jazz Festival was at least as big a draw for me as teaching,” he said.

He praised his predecessor Jeff Brown, who began the festival decades ago.

Tickets for the professionals’ performance are $15, with VU employees, staff and students admitted free. There’s no charge to see the high school students perform. For more information, go to www.valpo.edu/music/performances/jazz-festival/.

The performance space, at the University Theater in the Center for the Arts, is more intimate than many of the places the pros will play. It has 260 seats. Lark considers it one of the best small theaters in the Chicago area. “The audience is right on top of you, and it sounds good.”

His excitement about VU and the Center for the Arts is palpable. Sitting in the airy lobby, with lots of natural light from its wall of windows, he waved his arms expansively. “Look at this place. It’s beautiful.”

The Bauer Museum of Art is in the building as well. “There’s world-class stuff there,” he said, and it’s free.

Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.