Cal Poly’s 36-member jazz bands have started to raise an estimated $70,000 for a June trip to Puerto Rico.
The travel program aims to expose students to foreign cultures and music, said Terrence Spiller, professor and chair of the music department.
The department picked Puerto Rico because of its musical importance, Spiller said.
“Latin American music plays a huge role in jazz,” Spiller said. “Puerto Rico is interesting and it’s different than any trip before.”
Puerto Rico offers jazz students Cal Poly’s “Learn By Doing” experience in a global world. Jazz members get to learn firsthand the subtleties and intricacies of Latin American Jazz through educational clinics, Spiller said.
Not only do they get to experience how other cultures respond to music, but they are also exposed to diversity.
“Cal Poly does have issues with being diverse, and if you can take our Cal Poly kids and throw them somewhere like China, Brazil or Puerto Rico, the impact it makes on world views is extraordinary,” Spiller said.
The Cal Poly music department makes sure every ensemble has a chance to travel to somewhere fascinating at least once during their studies at Cal Poly, Spiller said. Last year, the orchestra traveled to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and the wind orchestra played at Disney Hall in Los Angeles. In 2006, the wind orchestra went to Europe.
The director of the jazz bands, Paul Rinzler, said he has been on past trips and has seen the importance they have. He said he makes sure the music department continues taking these trips.
Five years ago, the jazz band went on a trip to Brazil.
One night in Brazil, the jazz band played at a club where a thousand or more people attended, Rinzler said.
Trumpet soloist and civil engineering senior Bret Bailey went on the trip to Brazil and was part of the group that played at the club.
At one point during the performance, a group of Brazilian girls standing on the dance floor in front of the stage motioned the band to come down. The band then came down off the stage and played on the floor, both playing and dancing with the audience, Bailey said.
“It wasn’t something the Brazilians had to directly tell us, it was just something we could feel,” Bailey said. “That was, they appreciated what we had to offer. In return, we wanted to please them.”
Jazz is not like other music in which musicians just read the notes and play the keys — jazz is meant to be spontaneous and unpredictable. That’s exactly what the jazz bands grasped, and how they performed in Brazil, Rinzler said.
“The jazz bands became rock stars,” Rinzler said.
Hundreds of people rushed to watch them perform, then danced to the jazz until they couldn’t dance anymore, Rinzler said.
The trip was an eye-opening experience that brought the bands together and allowed them to bond like never before, Bailey said.
“We drove by areas in Brazil that were true shambles,” he said. “Numerous amounts of people were living together in single huts. It really hit home to us all of how fortunate we truly are.”
Bailey said he is looking forward to the trip to Puerto Rico and hopes to have a similar experience as in Brazil.
“The trip was worth every penny, and the music department does a great job of making sure that everyone can go,” Bailey said.
For the Puerto Rico trip, the department will raise money through fundraisers.
“Our biggest fundraiser is playing gigs, which is what the band should be doing because it instills a sense of professionalism in the band,” Rinzler said.
The estimated cost of the trip is around $1,900 per student. The department uses fundraisers and donations to cut costs for the students.
Those who still can’t afford the trip, even after help from fundraisers and donations, are still able to go on the trip. The department provides money for them from its own fund, even at a time of continuous budget cuts.
Money is tight and university spending is limited, but there is a need for student travel, Spiller said.