The Jazz Band : Sylvan Street

Throughout my lifetime I’ve been exposed to many different styles of music. One of the most emotionally connected music styles I’ve encountered would definitely be instrumental jazz. When I was younger I mostly listened to blues and smooth jazz, but more recently I’ve been attracted to faster tracks and harder beats like those you hear in the Swing era of the 1920’s. On Tuesday, October 27th I attended the performance of the jazz band: Sylvan Street, as a part of the University of Miami’s music festival (Festival Miami). The show started at eight o’clock at night cost ten dollars for students. Throughout the show, the band provided an incredible mixture of different styles of jazz while delivering an electrifying performance that captured the true essence of what jazz truly is.

Formed in 2008, “Sylvan Street” is a high-wattage jazz fusion band made up of eight incredible musicians who each bring their own talent to the stage creating one swingin’ band. Jay Rees plays bass and is the leader of the band, Kelland Thomas is the band’s only saxophonist, Chad Shoopman and Kenny Smukal both play trumpet, while Frank Browne plays guitar. Andrew Hix performs on the drums and vocals, Evan Rees on the piano and percussion, and Michael Faltin plays percussion. For this particular performance the band also had a guest percussionist, Douglas McCullough. Though the band never strays away from jazz itself, they create unique jazz fusion songs where they’ll combine swing, blues, popular song, rock and roll, latin rhythms, and urban techno beats.

To start the concert, the band played a couple tracks from their first album, “Here in America”. The first was the title track, “Here in America”. This song followed an American popular song thirty-two b...

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...ength in themselves and their love of jazz fusion music. The last song of the night played was their hit single, “Free the Toronto Nine”. Each musician had their own solo that kept true to the original song, but with fresh improvisation that created this incredible tune. This song has it all, swing feel, syncopation, improvisation, and enticing the rise and fall, but with a dramatic and modernized twist that just leaves you wanted more. This tune was definitely my favorite song of the night.

To conclude, the band “Sylvan Street” is an incredible band that draws in your every emotion with each song. Their combination of jazz, funk, rock and roll, and latin truly makes for an incredible sound of music that makes their band one I’m extremely grateful I was able to watch their performance live and will definitely be checking into other concerts of theirs in the future.