The sweet harmonies of USM student jazz musicians Peter Eberhardt and Emmett Harrity made lunch in the Woodbury Campus Center classier than usual last Tuesday. The show was the first installment of Jazz Tuesdays, a series of monthly concerts in the campus center being organized by the Portland Events Board in conjunction with the Jazz Studies Program.
Eberhardt played bass. He is a senior Music Performance major with a concentration in Jazz who plans to pursue a career in music after he graduates. He has been playing bass for three years and performs regularly with local indie hip-hop group the Grant Street Orchestra.
Harrity played keys. He recently transferred to USM from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and was grateful for the opportunity to perform for his new classmates. Although the duo had never played together before, they improvised beautifully and seemed to read each other’s minds.
It is usually difficult to attract people to events in the middle of the day. Christine Bullard, the chair of the PEB, hopes the concert series will overcome that challenge and will further the PEB’s goal of fostering a more active student community.
As tastes have changed over the years, masterpieces like Charlie Parker’s “Anthropology” and Cole Porter’s “I Love You” have become almost unknown outside of music departments. Chris Oberholtzer, the Director of the Jazz Studies Program, is excited that the series will provide jazz students with an opportunity to share some of these classic songs with the people of USM.
The next concert in the series will be Tuesday Oct. 29. It will feature a saxophone player for a funkier atmosphere.