Swing topic of tonight’s session

September 11, 2008 08:11 am

— LEWISBURG — “El salon estaba encedido” (The room was on fire) during Latin Jazz, the third in the Jazz Conversations series with the Burgess-Mitchell-Seal Trio on Aug. 28.
If you were there, you experienced hot Latin Jazz in the forms of the mambo, cha cha, pachanga, bolero, samba and of course the Brazilian bossa nova. The set featured songs composed by a diverse group of songwriters, including Dizzy Gillespie, Chino Pozo, Louis Bonfa, Prez Prado, Sonny Rollins, Antonio Carlos Jobin and Sigmund Romberg.
Grammy Award-winning drummer Steve Mitchell was superb, drawing on his West Coast experience with Latin jazz and showing his versatility on percussion. Bassist Andy Seal discussed how the roles are reversed in Latin Jazz, with the heavy emphasis on percussion and bass, while the piano maintains the rhythm.
The highlight of the evening was “Afro Blue,” a mango by Mongo Santamaria.
Tonight the conversation on swing jazz will feature “C Jam Blues” by Duke Ellington as the jam session number. The last show of the series, on Sept. 25, will showcase bebop.
The last two shows in the series will be moving to the Parkview Room, 17 S. 6th Street, Lewisburg.