Captivating the audience with a flugelhorn, jazz musician Dmitri Matheny performed with the Aragon Jazz Band, Jazz Combo and Jazz Ensemble in the Aragon theater on Feb. 16.
The flugelhorn is a unique bell-shaped brass instrument that produces a sound similar to that of a trumpet. Regarding his reasoning to pursue the flugelhorn, Matheny says, “I just love the melody so much but I love the idea of singing a melody through the horn, and with a flugelhorn, it just gets a tone that is so much more warm and lyrical and melodic that it just suits me.”
Matheny’s talents are distinguished and have been recognized by the public. As a protege of Art Farmer, a world-renowned jazz performer, Matheny has been dubbed “one of the jazz world’s most talented horn players” by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Because this concert featured Matheny as a guest to perform with the Aragon Jazz program, expectations for the show were high. Senior Ricky Dolan, a guitar player in the Aragon Jazz Combo, expresses the pressure involved in preparation, saying, “More people showed up [and] there was some advertising on KCSM [a San Mateo jazz music radio station] about it. So we really felt the pressure to get it right.”
Aragon musical director Troy Davis and Matheny are professional colleagues in the field of music, and Davis invited Matheny to Aragon a couple of times in the past to work with students in clinics and workshops. As they selected the music in the fall, a couple months before the performance, this gave Davis and the band members time to prepare and rehearse ahead of time.
Additionally, as Matheny joined Aragon’s jazz groups for rehearsal a few times, students were able to get an exclusive experience learning the life of a professional musician while also receiving constructive advice and criticism from him. He says, “It’s usually not about the notes on the page because with musicians of this caliber they know the notes on the page … It’s mainly about the subtleties: the phrasing, the nuances, the volume, intonation.”
Sophomore Danny Navarrete, a saxophonist in the Aragon Jazz Band, explained the impact of the words and advice shared by Matheny: “Jazz is like a conversation, so when you’re a baby, you learn how to speak from listening to your parents and this is the same thing as jazz.”
Reflecting upon the experience, Davis enjoyed the opportunity for his students to work with Matheny. Davis says, “The whole experience was really great. The fact that I was able to facilitate that situation so that my students were exposed to him is really the best part because he’s a great musician and [a] wonderful person. And the fact that they were able to interact with him and get a taste of that was was really special.”
