Midnight Jazz-tet

The Midnight Jazz-tet, led by HSU professor Gil Cline and comprised of HSU jazz alumni, will make a rare appearance on Saturday October 7 at 8 PM in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. The octet of five horns and rhythm section plays Cline’s original compositions in a variety of styles, including blues, bop, cool, swing, funk and various Latin beats. Tickets are $8 general, $3 seniors and students, available from the HSU ticket office at 826-3928. This Faculty Artist Series event is presented by the HSU Department of Music.

The octet of five horns and rhythm section plays Cline’s original compositions in a variety of styles, including blues, bop, cool jazz, swing, funk, jazz waltz and various Latin beats.

“As a composer I’ve found that using five horn players allows tremendous possibilities,” Cline said. He composes and orchestrates for various combinations of trumpet, trombone and alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, with a range of other instruments these same musicians play, such as clarinet, flute, flugelhorn, and even tuba, vibes and piccolo. “In the end there’s a lot of elbow room for all the musicians to take solos, to jam and stretch out.”

As pioneered by such jazz greats as Miles Davis, the jazz octet emphasizes improvisation. “Since there is so little music in print for an ensemble of this size,” Cline said, “I’ve been writing my own.” Besides some two dozen works for the Midnight Jazz-tet, Cline’s compositions have been played by other groups, such as San Francisco’s West Coast Cool, and a number of them will soon be published in New York by Jazzlines.

The HSU show will feature some of these new, original works in the American jazz medium. Originally formed in 1994, the current Midnight Jazz-tet is comprised of HSU jazz alumni from some of Cline's HSU P.M. Jazz Bands of the 1980s and 90s, which played on a number of CenterArts concerts including those with Louis Bellson, Herbie Mann, Gerald Wilson and Poncho Sanchez.

The Midnight horn section features Cline on trumpet and flugelhorn, Matt Machen on alto sax, Randy Carrico on tenor and soprano sax, Gregg Moore on trombone, and Chris Larsen on baritone sax. Cline adds that listeners attending the concert will hear one of the best jazz rhythm sections in Northern California, with pianist Darius Brotman, bass guru Shao Way Wu, and the versatile Mike LaBolle on drums.

Professor of Music Dr. Gilbert Cline is HSU’s teacher of Studio Trumpet, and leads the Brass Ensembles as well as the Midnight Jazz-tet. He has performed as a trumpet soloist with Seattle Baroque, American Bach Solosts, Portland Baroque Orchestra and many other orchestras and ensembles.

Tickets are $8 general, $3 seniors and students, available from the HSU ticket office at 826-3928. This is a Faculty Artist Series event presented by the HSU Department of Music.

Media

Eureka Times-Standard by Jarad Petroske: It's called the Midnight Jazz-tet. It consists of eight players, produces a wall of sound, and requires myriad sports analogies to describe this seemingly unique idea. In a switch up of the usual jazz combo, and an eschewing of the big band style, Humboldt State University music professor Gil Cline is bringing out an octet for an evening of original compositions.

After leading the big bands and jazz combos at HSU, Cline is looking outside of this framework and taking a nod from Miles Davis' work on his monumental 1949 recording for Blue Note Records, “The Birth of Cool.” “(Davis') group existed just for that recording, but it set a new style for how you could write for, in this case, six horns,” Cline said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

And writing new music is something Cline is not shying away from with this project. These days, jazz performances typically feature the standards we've all come to know and love and, not unlike a basketball pick-up game, the music takes an organic form that drifts in and out as soloists find their voices and chase ideas that work and leave behind those that don't.

"Of Jazz and Basketball" by Bryan Radzin in HSU Lumberjack: "The freedom of jazz music is apparent, and can be healing to the soul." "'The audience that attends this show will hear compositions with unpredictable elements," Cline said, about the soloists and the choices they have. 'It's like a high-wire act without a net.'"