Vintage to play classic jazz at all-ages show Friday at 8 p.m. in the Senior Center.
By: Joseph Harvie
Music aficionados have a place to go Friday night when Vintage brings its repertoire of classic jazz to the Senior Center.
After a three-month hiatus for the summer, the South Brunswick Arts Commission is re-launching its monthly Jazz Café series at the Herb Eckert Auditorium in the Senior Center at the Municipal Complex on Route 522.
Vintage is a four-person ensemble with Daniel Dorrance on clarinet, Hiroko Taguchi on violin, Mary Wooten on cello, and Stephen Benson on guitar.
Mr. Dorrance said Wednesday the band plays songs as they were originally performed. They perform using original transcriptions of classic jazz artists including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Waller and George Gershwin, among others.
"They’re arranged for some traditional and nontraditional instruments," Mr. Dorrance said. "There’s clarinet, which is traditional, and violin and cello, which are nontraditional instruments, and a guitar, which is somewhere in the middle."
Mr. Dorrance said Vintage is a relatively new ensemble, forming just a few years ago, but the band has played several shows at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and jazz festivals across the country. Mr. Dorrance said that the group played a show recently at the Harvard Club in New York. He said the club was formal so most people sat and watched the show, but at other shows the music gets the audience out of their seats and onto the dance floor.
"If people want to get up and start dancing that would be fine for us," Mr. Dorrance said. "The music lends itself to that."
Mr. Dorrance said the evening will include jazz from several different eras and people in attendance will get a chance to hear music that is not typically played locally.
"It’s very exciting," Mr. Dorrance said. "It’s not your typical band. It’s exciting to hear music with a lot of different instruments involved. It’s fun to watch and it’s also historical so you can learn about the different periods of music."
The all ages show, open to all ages, will begin at 8 p.m. Admission is $5 and refreshments are included. Anyone with any questions can contact the arts commission at (732) 329-400 ext. 7635.