‘An Evening of Jazz’ Swings Through Plant Hall

Have you ever heard Britney Spears’ “Toxic” performed by a jazz band?

Last Monday night, I enjoyed the arrangement, along with many other jazz songs.

The event was called “Evening of Jazz,” and was hosted by UT in Grand Salon from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

An enthusiastic crowd awaited the performance.

I was very entertained and pleasantly surprised at some of the song choices.

This quartet had the crowd tapping their toes and jamming, as much as they could in their chairs, to the beat.

The quartet was made up of Alejandro Arenas (bass), Aric Brian (trumpet), Mark Fineman (drums) and John O’Leary (piano).

Arenas is a Colombian native who began his musical career by playing guitar.

He not only plays jazz, but has also studied salsa, blues, rock and heavy metal.

He received his bachelors of music in jazz performance from University of South Florida (USF) and is currently an instructor at St. Petersburg College.

Brian is a freelance trumpet player and educator in Tampa.

He performs with The Florida Orchestra, Opera Tampa and others at the Straz Performing Arts Center.

He has also performed in many jazz festivals across the world including Montreux, Switzerland; Vienne, France; and North Sea, Netherlands.

He is also a faculty member at USF, UT, St. Petersburg College and Southeastern University.

Feinman is a professional drummer who teaches in the Tampa Bay area.

He has a multitude of performance experiences, ranging from private functions to musical theater and other venues, including a big band tour of Italy and France.

He studied jazz performance at USF and at SUNY Purchase in New York.

O’Leary is a Yucatan native who was born to a concert pianist mother and began playing at the age of four.

He also played tuba throughout high school.

He double-majored in chemistry and jazz studies at USF and graduated Cum Laude with honors in 2008.

He has traveled the world performing with jazz greats.

He now is a graduate student at USF and is pursuing a PhD in neuroscience and is a freelance pianist.

Before the show, I talked to a few jazz band students from UT.

Chris Perry, junior, told me he was very excited.

“Two of the performers, the bassist and the drummer, came to our class,” said Perry. “We got the chance to meet them and play with them. They were really good.”

Another member of the UT jazz band, junior Peter Farina, was also excited. Jazz is Farina’s passion.

“I don’t get to hear live jazz often, outside of jazz band of course,” he said.

Typically, most concerts I attend have classical music in their programs.

The one thing that I noticed that was very different about this jazz concert was how laid-back the performers and performances were.

They counted “one, two, a one, two, three” (or something along those lines) out loud for the audience to hear before a song.

The first song was very lively and, in my opinion, a great way to start the evening.

It was appropriately titled “Let’s Get Lost.”

I did get lost in the music.

I looked around me and saw the crowd dancing in their seats.

Most of the songs either had an upbeat and lively tempo or a Latin-inspired song with a salsa feel.

There were only a few songs that I would classify as smooth jazz, which to me has slower tempos.

Many of the songs were arranged by Arenas.

“Toxic” was my favorite.

Not only was it an interesting interpretation of the song, but it was also familiar and I could relate to it.

The explanation Arenas gave for why he did an cover of “Toxic” was that he was sitting in the car one day and he had the wrong radio station on.

“This is a good song!” said Arenas.

Feinman, the drummer, commented on the arrangement and said, “This is how we perceive [Britney Spears’] music.”

Brian stepped down for this song; only the bass, drums and piano played.

At first, I could not pick out the familiar melody, but then the piano played the chorus at a very slow pace with a very jazzy feel.

Then the drums and bass took over the melody again.

I was impressed with the arrangement, especially the drumming.

The drummer had a solo all to himself.

It seems like it would have been hard for a drummer to make his drums sound graceful, but this drummer did it.

Although he played rather loudly, it was extremely enjoyable.

This song was all over the place and came back together at the chorus,; it was a great arrangement.

As I mentioned before, this performance was different than the classical ones that I typically attend.

The performers explained each song before or after they played it, which was very significant to me, and they seemed to love what they were doing.

They were also very approachable and relaxed before, during, and after their performance.

Monica Moran, a sophomore, said she thought the sow was amazing and said she would see them again if they ever came back to perform.

I also highly recommend it.

Laurel Sanchez can be reached at laurel.sanchez1@gmail.com.