Jazz Review of The First Hollis Donaldson Trio
Jazz Review of The First Hollis Donaldson Trio
I attended a jazz show at the Renaissance Café in Newark. The Renaissance Café is a small restaurant. On the right side is a bar, to the left is the dining area and straight-ahead is a small performing area. The small audience was dressed very casually. They were very attentive and supportive of the performers. The group was made up of a drummer, a cello player, a keyboarder, and a vocalist. They were dressed with their own personal style, but overall casual. The vocalist Hollis Donaldson was very personable. During the performance he kept introducing the group members and complimenting them. After the show we ended up talking for about a half an hour.
The music was very relaxing yet jumpy. It had a bluesy, beaty feel to it. I wanted to dance and listen closely to it at the same time. The song I liked best was “When you wish upon a star”. While he was in Japan a man asked him to play it, but he improvised it and put his style into the song. It was about dreams in life. He sung “ If you don’t have a dream, how are you gonna make a dream come true”. I feel this applies to every single person in this world. How are you going to make something happen if you don’t know what you want to happen. If you don’t have a dream how are you gonna make a dream come true, how can you explain this better?
The performance was great I really enjoyed it. There was defiantly sufficient energy and calm felt in the performance. The performers seemingly felt very comfortable with their music and loved it. Communication and Ensemble was good throughout the performance. The performers were very into the music, you could see it in their eyes and the way that they performed.
I really like jazz music. This was the second jazz show that I have attended. Jazz shows are very in depth and show the inner thoughts and feelings of the performers. This was a great new experience for me. I enjoyed myself and I am going to attend more jazz shows in the future.