Cooling Down with the Cats of Oberlin Jazz Sextet

OJS, or the Oberlin Jazz Sextet, has hardly stayed close to home this year. Recently performing at the Detroit Jazz Festival, Calvin Barnes (saxophone), J.Q. Whitcomb (trumpet), Andy Hunter (trombone), Adam Faulk (piano), Matthew Elliott (bass), and James Alexander (drums) have impressed many audiences. Hand-picked by the Jazz Department Faculty, OJS is planning a Winter Term Tour taking them throughout the midwest and as far as Saint Louis and New Orleans. Although all talented musicians, the members of OJS attribute much of their musical success to the Jazz Department faculty. To find out what it’s like to be a student and traveling musician at once, Cat Richert interviewed OJS in Hales Gym, a place notorious for emitting melodious riffs at all hours of the night.

Cat Richert: Has OJS been around for a long time or is it a group that was just formed this year?

J. Q. Whitcomb: Most years the school puts together an ensemble, a sextet or a septet. They just select outstanding jazz department personnel.

CR: So I guess you guys are outstanding (laughter). So does that mean that once you are in OJS, you are in it for the rest of the time you are at Oberlin?

JW: No, it’s different every year. Most of us are graduating, though.

CR: Recently you played at the Detroit Jazz Festival. Was that the first time you all played together this year?

Jimmy Alexander: Yeah, it was.

CR: Tell me more about the Festival. What was it like?

Adam Faulk: It was a cool concept. I’ve never — except for one time before — been put up in a hotel or anything (laughter).

AF: To go see a festival with great musicians, people I’ve listened to, to get to meet them and perform on the same sort of venue that they’re in.

CR: Did you get to do workshops with these musicians?
JA: I met Jimmy Smith (laughter).

JW: Yeah, they didn’t really do any types of workshops or anything. But hearing them was just an amazing educational experience in itself.

CR: Do you all think you will go on to play jazz professionally?
AF: Hopefully (everyone nods in agreement)

CR: So I guess the Festival was really excellent preparation.

AF: Oh definitely. That’s the thing, too. It’s like a preview…we’re playing on the stage that Jimmy Smith is playing on.

CR: What’s your next project?

JW: Our next project is to go on tour for Winter Term.

AF: the school is sponsoring a tour around Michigan, and Chicago, and then the South to...

JW: St. Louis and New Orleans…

AF: To different schools, high schools, to do programs there…

CR: What is it like to be a student and also preparing for and almost being in a semi-professional career? Do you all individually play in clubs in Cleveland and the area?

AF: It’s great! I have so much fun.

JW: It’s necessary really.

Trumpet player Andy Hunter enters the room.

Andy Hunter: What was that last question?

CR: I was wondering if any of you play on your own outside of Oberlin?

AH: Yeah. Six days a week. I have a website for it!

Before Hunter arrived, Richert asked the band about the scholarship he received at the Detroit Music Festival. Hunter was able to tell more about it.

CR: One thing I asked before you arrived was about the scholarship you won at the festival. Were you expecting to get it, or was it a surprise?

AH: I didn’t even know it was something they were considering. They chose one among all the college players…it’s basically a grant for continuing education.

CR: As children, were you listening to jazz, were you incorporating it into your consciousness?

AF: I actually started later. I didn’t start playing the piano until my freshman year in high school. Originally, I was a violin player. I played classical violin. But I always like to play around on the piano. Freshman year, I started with jazz.

JW: I didn’t start jazz until probably my last year of high school. I’d heard only the most mainstream of jazz before that. I didn’t know anything about it until I came here.

JA: My first jazz stuff wasn’t really swing, it was funk based. I started playing that at about the age of 19 and then I came out here and I realized that I knew some stuff, but I didn’t really have the fine tuning. That’s what this was for me.

Calvin Barnes: I started playing piano at age five, and then started the saxophone in elementary school.

CR: And it just fit right away?

CB: Yeah, it just sunk in right away.

AH: I started a little bit earlier...one thing I think about the faculty is that a lot of them are playing outside of Oberlin and can get their students out playing in Cleveland.

JW: I think Wendell [Logan, Chair, Jazz Music Studies] has been one of the major resources for my personal education since I’ve been here. In the big band, he’s given me the most in terms of direct jazz education.

AF: If you look at it, it all goes back to Wendell and the department putting this together; it’s just amazing. It’s brought more attention to it . Last February, a few of us went to the Elmhust Jazz Festival in Chicago to perform there. We ended up being one of the top combos out of 34 other colleges and schools around the country. Just that comes out of Oberlin.

CR: Yeah. you don’t even realize how lucky you are to have these fantastic professors here until you’re put into a setting outside of Oberlin.

AF: That’s something that’s going on year after year, too.

CB: Half the time, the Oberlin Jazz Department shows up any other school around.

To find out more about upcoming jazz events, go to www.oberlin.edu/ ~ahunter.