Joyce DiCamillo recalls listening to her father's collection of jazz recordings while growing up in Stamford and being enthralled by the sound. Intricate rhythms, darting melodies and skilled soloists made their mark on the future professional pianist.
"I really learned this music listening to my father's records," says Joyce. "He passed it on to me."
DiCamillo now is passing on what she's learned to young musicians by offering the Young Artists Summer Jazz Workshop. The two-week seminar introduces and reinforces jazz techniques such as improvisation, solo performance and composition. Students also participate in master classes with renowned jazz instrumentalists. The workshop, which began July 19, will culminate July 30 with a concert at Atria Stamford.
This is the 18th year of the workshop, which Joyce co-directs with saxophonist John Mastroianni. The teaching staff includes five other accomplished musicians.
Students divide into small groups, working with a different instructor each day to get a feel for a variety of musical and teaching styles. On Thursday, bassist Morrie Louden guided his student combo--consisting of a pianist, trombonist, saxophonist, bassist and drummer--through the Latin-grooved "Blue Bossa." Louden talked them through jazz techniques such as basic chord changes for an opening vamp, sticking with triad notes when feeling one's way through a solo, and listening to each other to remain in tempo together. They should play "so it feels as one," Louden told the young musicians, "so you really feel that rhythm, makes you want to get up and dance."
"We are keeping the flame of this music alive and bringing it to all these young people who didn't grow up hearing it on the radio," says, Joyce, who studied classical piano at Syracuse University and is executive of the Stamford Young Artists Philharmonic. "There's a void, and we'd like to fill it."
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