Before we start, I would just like to thank Dr. Salmon for reaching out and having the idea for this collaboration and also being very patient with me as this was the first podcast I ever recorded, had to learn how to edit it, had some personal stuff get in the way but it's finally here, we can finally listen to it and I just want to thank Dr. Salmon for being a great professor and for all his patience with me. And welcome back to another WXAV podcast here with 88.3 FM Chicago in the podcasting studio today with a little mini series with the SXU Jazz Combo.
They did some original compositions last semester and right now I am joined by my friend Rachel Garcia. Rachel, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm doing well right off the bat just for people that I don't know.
What do you play in jazz combo? I am an alto saxophonist. Alto saxophonist and sometimes vocalist. Yes, sometimes vocalist.
Not in this recording session though. How long have you been playing saxophone? I've been playing since eighth grade. I started taking it more seriously in high school so yeah it's been a while.
So that would be seven years? Yeah roughly yeah. Around seven years. So have you composed or written music before this assignment with Dr.
Salmon? No we had practice in some of our music theory classes but this is my first time actually composing something and it was sort of weird trying to actually because I'm always used to like transposing things from my instrument but it was just a really different feel trying to make sure everything sounded great for all the other instruments. For everyone else yeah so I'm going to play a little part of your piece. We can just have a little chat about it so this is yeah by James Xavier's very own Rachel Garcia.
Rachel tell me about your experience coming up with that main melody because everyone does melodies a little different and I want to know what yours. I'm pretty I'm mainly classical with my music so when I got to Saint Xavier it was my sort of first taste of jazz so I wasn't really sure about form and I just sort of just composed this and I was like I've heard these like sort of licks before and I like them and I'm just gonna put them in. That's not usually how it goes in terms of structure for charts but um I don't know I just liked it put it all together and Dr. Salmon's really into just um embracing the creativity and sort of let go of structure sometime so he just went with it and he really liked it so we kept it as it was.
Yeah how was the experience in the studio for you? That was something else. I so I grew up with my dad on handling sort of like speakers and like all those fancy equipment with all those buttons and all that so I'd seen that like firsthand before but actually seeing it in a professional environment like there was a separate room where it was like soundproof so that it wouldn't interfere with the recordings and we could look into the other room. It was just it sort of just made it more real in terms of like oh I'm not just jamming out with my friends now this is an actual like professional setting and it gives you a taste of what to strive for after you graduate you know.
Do you feel like it kind of changed the chemistry of the band you know it must have felt different from playing in the choir hall so how do you think the feel in the room changed? Definitely after a while because obviously you have a chance to be able to pick your favorite take the more we played it the more we were like oh well now we actually have to sort of exactly think about what the form like the kind of form we want you got to think about how your show is gonna go what did you like about a particular solo okay well I want to corporate that and so the actual recording that way people like actually hear what I like um so if anything it just made you think about it more you actually had to take it even more seriously and after hearing your piece over and over and over again I feel like that sort of I understand now how there are to feel when they're like okay now I want to write something else because now they picked what they liked and what they didn't like and then they could just go on from there so yeah it felt way more serious. How do you think the process of picking your favorite solo's where even though we didn't play them in this thing? When it comes to like soloing for me like I said I'm still new to it if there are things that I like a lot I'll try to remember exactly what I did and after a while you sort of like I don't know picking out little pieces of everything every time you solo I mean like okay now I'm just gonna put that all into one solo if possible without trying to make it sound forced at the same time so yeah it's like sort of saying a speech but like having bullet points instead of just like improvising it on the spot completely so now you have an idea of what you want.
That's great analogy I just think it's a little quirky thing in jazz where like when there's not lyrics there is a title that kind of gives a feel of the piece so if you would like to explain the title of your piece or how you kind of came up with it. Every time we would walk into jazz ensemble I don't know every time we would nail a certain part of the chart or something Dr. Samma would sometimes just look at us and be like this yes and it's just it sounds ridiculous when he say it out loud but I don't know I guess it was just sort of like a tribute to Dr. Samma because he was the one who encouraged us to start making our own compositions.
It's very charismatic but like anything that comes out of Dr. Samma's mouth is like unreasonably charismatic. Yep so that was my tribute to him as yay. Very very very nice tribute that was a little wxav podcast with singing Xavier's jazz ensembles very own Rachel Garcia the composer of yaz thank you for joining me today.
Thank you for having me.