Top Honors to Oberlin Jazz Ensemble at 44th Annual Collegiate Jazz Festival By Marci Janas '91
			"Finally, a band that can play the blues." This alone is high praise for a jazz troupe. Add to it the fact that the band in question, the Oberlin Jazz Ensemble (OJE), inspired such ardor from Rodney Whitaker, one of the leading jazz bass performers in the U.S. Whitaker made the comment when he rendered a decision as a juror at the 44th Annual Collegiate Jazz Festival, held February 27 through March 2 at the University of Notre Dame’s Washington Hall. Needless to say, the OJE swept away the competition, earning a superior rating for the ensemble and solo awards for four of its members: guitarist Jason McMahon, a double-degree sophomore from Denver, Colo.; trombonist Andrae Murchison, a sophomore from Savannah, Ga.; drummer Kassa Overall, a first-year student from Seattle, Wash.; and tenor saxophonist Alex Shepherd, a sophomore from Scituate, Mass. Eleven bands from throughout the U.S. participated in the Notre Dame jazz festival. "It was a good experience for the kids. That’s the reason we do it," says Wendell Logan, Director of the OJE, Professor of African-American Music and Chair of the Jazz Studies Program. "It was a chance for them to hear other groups from other schools and to see how they compared." Other adjudicators for the festival, besides Whitaker, were pianist Jim McNeely, trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, saxophonist James Carter, drummer John Robinson, and jazz historian Dan Morgenstern. The jurors gave the OJE superior or excellent ratings across the board, from their improvisational skills, interpretation, rhythm, intonation and technique to how well they functioned as an ensemble. Even their choice of music was critiqued. The band played "Gingerbread Boy," "Chelsea Bridge," "Big T" and Slide Hampton’s arrangement of "Night in Tunisia.") The OJE scored top marks for a great choice of tones and arrangements, and for the difficulty of the tunes they played.
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