Up-Beat

UP UNTIL a few years ago, jazz had little place on the college campus. It was fit music for night-clubs, sleazy joints and bad hotels. But when the music showed that it could hold up under the same scrutiny accorded to classical pieces, many universities began to open their catalogues to jazz entrees. North Texas State set the pace by offering the nation's first jazz degree in 1947, and by the seventies, more than ten schools offered a degree in jazz and over 500 schools gave accredited courses in the area. But Colleges offered their biggest jazz tribute in the mid-sixties when students clamored to form their own campus bands in remarkable numbers.

Throughout the early jazz flourish Harvard University revealed a sort of tin ear for syncopated sound. Even with the music inundating Boston, one of America's finer jazz towns, Harvard had failed to pick up the beat. It failed, that is, until University band director Tom Everett organized the Harvard jazz band three years ago. Since its inception, the band has provided a home for lonesome jazz men and big band enthusiasts. Within the last year it has shown admirable skill on the local mixer circuit, and at occasional concerts for other schools.

But the 250 free-concert seekers who attended Monday's performance at Sander's Theater heard a Harvard Jazz Band with new spark. Everett's 27 rag tag musicians joined Boston Jazz and Sackbut Weeks (April 29-May 5) in honoring the city's sackbut or modern trombone players with two hours worth of sweet, informal big-band renditions.

The Harvard contingent, however, didn't go it alone. In keeping with the seven day celebration, handyman Everett recruited two of the finest trombone artists playing today: Phil Wilson, trombone teacher at Boston's Berklee College of Music and Woody Herman band soloist in the sixties, and Carl Fontana, one of the best trombonists in the West, a veteran of the Woody Herman and Stan Kenton bands of the fifties.

Everett saved his two trump cards for the second act, but he revealed to his attuned audience a series of high card student performers who injected new life into some of the old jazz standards. The two numbers which lingered longest in Sander's hot summer air were, no doubt, Ray Brown's "Is There Anything Still There," and Duke Ellington's stock favorite "Satin Doll." Brown's eloquent tune featured a deep sax solo in the Coleman Hawkins vein by Jim Scales, who unfortunately had to battle a couple of over-zealous trumpeters to be heard. "Satin Doll," a likely homage to the Duke's 75th birthday, started out slow with the trombones dominating. But Steve Sack's alto sax solo quickly asserted itself, and brought the number into focus.

For Chuck Mangione's "Klee Impressions," Everett brought on three additional flutes plus an in-vogue soprano saxophone performance by the versatile Sacks. The mellifluous soloist offset some sluggish French horn work, and left a sweet taste in the listeners' mouths during intermission.

As Everett unveiled his headliners in the second half, an aura of professionalism blanketed the local performers. Fontana, a sprawling red-shirted mass, bellowed out a beautiful, conventional rendition of "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," and then offered a fine interpretation of Bill Howard's "Carl," with an ingenious improvisational tag. The classicist gave way to the more experimental Wilson, who flirted with his own creation "Mother England." Wilson "kibbitzed" with his instrument, contorting the sound until an exasperated Fontana blurted out from the wings, "You can't do that with the trombone!"

The band, in deference, toned down its horns just enough to provide a rich field for the two soloists to romp in. And when the improvisational smoke finally cleared, the performers had come a little closer to realizing student manager David Small's inevitable goal of "having people come to Harvard because of jazz." Hopefully, Monday night's concert will signal the beginning of Harvard's sprint to overtake the rest of the collegiate runners in a race to recognize jazz's rightful place on campus.