September 29th was the date slated for the first Jazz Jam of the year, and my good friend and I went, as we always do. We were excited for a return to one of our favourite events on campus. The typical show follows an opening performance by the assembled house musicians, then a couple of musicians from the audience come and perform, and then the house musicians play a final awe-inspiring piece to end off the evening.
Following the excitement of the Jazz Jam, I had a chance to talk to one of twelve of the executive members of the Music Club here on campus, VP Francisco Rubio. Francisco has been a member of the Music Club for 3 years, and manages most of the jazz related events the club hosts, including the Jazz Jam.
Wendell Zylstra: The Music club is obviously a very broad club, how does that work logistically?
Francisco Rubio: We’ve grown a lot in the past years to better serve the music community on campus. In previous years when we’ve had a smaller team, where we’ve really only been able to focus on certain events that fit with each exec member’s capacity, I focus on jazz mainly. We merged with another music club, Echo, this year to try and encompass more variety.
WZ: What is your goal with the Music club this year?
FR: There's a lot of people who want to play on campus, but they’re not connected so they don’t have that community. As well as that, they don’t have the space, so we’re hoping to invite people to a space where they can come together and play music.
WZ: So you are kind of the head jazz person, what inspired you to bring jazz to UBCO?
FR: I would play at the different jazz events in high school and throughout Kelowna, like the one at the Rotary Centre. These events had very welcoming environments with nice communities. Those environments were something I loved and really wanted to bring to university.
WZ: Is the group that you regularly see at the Jazz Jam all part of the Music club?
FR: As the scene is growing on campus, I find it really helpful to do a house band so that we’ll have musicians no matter what. So the people that typically play the opening set are really the same people, great guys. I play with them a lot off campus and we do gigs downtown, they’re just people I met while on the scene in Kelowna. Myself and some of the musicians like Noah [the piano player] and Graeme [the drummer], all play for the Kelowna Big Band, a big band jazz orchestra that includes a lot of musicians all over the Okanagan.
WZ: For the part of the evening where you open up the floor, do you tend to reach out to certain people?
FR: I've gotten to know some of the musicians on campus who tend to come every time so I’ll usually make sure to reach out to them as well. It's always great to have musicians to change out every once and a while.
WZ: Are there typically many practice sessions for the initial set or is it pure improvisation?
FR: This is a good topic because people tend to have this conception that we practice the set beforehand, but I will literally text the guys like 30 minutes before the set and ask ‘what do you guys wanna play?’ So there’s absolutely no rehearsal.
WZ: Are you interested in the teaching aspect of music at all?
FR: Something we’ve done in the past are jazz workshops, one teaching the beginning of improvisation and one focused specifically on how to play at a Jazz Jam. Something I realized last year was that some people know their instruments but it’s kind of hard to learn how to actually play at a jam. I definitely want to do more workshops with people to bridge that gap.
WZ: Any upcoming events you would like to plug?
FR: On the 5th of November we have a live band karaoke with the karaoke club, then, on the 19th we were going to have an open mic night with Beats, the acapella club. On November 25th we're gonna have another Jazz Jam in the well. We’re also really excited about our big end-of-year concert on November 30th!
With that I thanked him and we went our separate ways. I would highly recommend attending one of the events Francisco mentioned if you are at all interested in anything music adjacent. For more information and other club events, regularly check on the Music Club’s instagram: @music.club.suo.
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