During the winter break, five fledging USM jazz musicians found work in Downeast Maine. Over the course of several days the aptly, if uncreatively named USM Jazz Quintet-Noel Brennan (drums), Josh Evans (piano), Jim Ellis (guitar), Kyle Hardy (saxophones) and Chris Sprague (bass)-filled a Calais, Maine auditorium several times over and met with local high school musicians for some jazz performance workshops. Noel Brennan revealed to the Free Press some details of the excursion.
FP: Who hosted all of this?
NOEL: The Calais PTA put it on and paid us for the shows and master classes.
FP: How did the shows go? Did you all travel down together?
NOEL: All of the shows went well. We all came at different times, so we didn’t get to travel together.
FP: What kind of tunes did you play?
NOEL: We played lots of different styles-Ellington with a reggae funk groove, rather than the original jazz swingin’ time, some Ellington standards, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson.
FP: What do you have to say about performing outside of the academic setting?
NOEL: I think you can make a name for yourself without playing a show at Corthell Hall. You just have to network on your own, find other musicians in and out of the program and play as much as possible, whenever you have the opportunity.
FP: Is the same quintet playing around Southern Maine at all?
NOEL: We are playing Feb. 2 and Feb. 16 at Club Blue on Congress Street across from the State Theater.
Any cd’s put out by this group…?