Jazz Forum Has Become too Performance Focused

Lyric Anderson Senior Staff Writer

Every Friday at noon, the Cat in the Cream comes alive for Jazz Forum. Conservatory and College students quickly fill up the tables, squeeze onto couches, or perch atop the makeshift bench lining the back wall. Often, even more students are left leaning against the bartop, all in eager anticipation of live music.

But what is Jazz Forum — or, more importantly, what is it supposed to be — and why is it so popular to Conservatory and College students alike? In my three semesters at Oberlin, I’ve noticed Jazz Forum becoming increasingly synonymous with a jazz concert, which is another performance opportunity for small jazz ensembles. Concerts usually take place in the evenings on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. But by definition, a forum is far different from a concert.

disagree with the critique. From a non-musician’s perspective, I imagine this dialogue is also quite interesting to witness, and I think there should generally be more of it.

Delaney Fox Conservatory Editor

On Sunday mornings, most Conservatory Vocal Performance majors aren’t found sleeping in, but rather in church pews, singing for a congregation. In fact, a real professional network has emerged around local churches and their willingness to pay Oberlin students for their musical talent. This week, many students committed even more time to their church jobs in preparation for Holy Week services and Easter.

The church choirs within this network vary in commitment, distance from campus, and size, allowing students to pick which church works best for them. Some students, like double-degree second-year Ava Paul and the four other paid members of her church, travel as far as Cleveland for their gig.

“My church pays more than other churches in the area, and that comes with a lot more of a time commitment,” Paul said.

“On Thursday nights, I leave campus at 6:30 p.m., and we drive 50 minutes into Cleveland. We rehearse for two hours, and then we drive back to campus. On Sunday morning, we leave campus at 8:00 a.m., drive to church, rehearse for an hour, and then have church service from 10–11:30 a.m. Then we drive back. It’s about four hours of rehearsal per week and four hours of driving per week.”

This week, Paul’s church scheduled additional rehearsals on Tuesday night and Saturday morning to accommodate the more than tripled amount of repertoire programmed for its Maundy Thursday service and extended Easter Sunday service.

“Easter and all of Holy Week is, I would say, the biggest week in the church scene, at least for my church,” Paul said.

Other students simply walk across campus to get to their church or rehearse in a Bibbins Hall classroom. Conservatory fourth-year Jared Cohen is the music director at Birmingham Methodist Church, located about 15 minutes outside of Oberlin. As a music director, his responsibilities include curating the music for each service and organizing rehearsals.

“We meet Wednesday nights in Bibbins to rehearse for an hour, and then we have the service on Sunday,” Cohen said. “The time commitment is really only like three hours a week. It’s not that bad.”

Conservatory fourth-year Nathan Romero directs the choir at First United Methodist Church of Oberlin, right next to Robertson Hall. For Romero’s choir, students dedicate their Sunday mornings to both a rehearsal and service, eliminating the weekday commitment. Romero’s choir also consists of community members who volunteer their time to make music for the congregation.

Regardless of the varied experiences, the value of a church gig is undisputed among Voice majors. For Romero, who will study Conducting next year at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Redlands, his church job and the experience from leading a choir at a professional level was invaluable to his graduate school application process.

“I think being a director at a church did help with my resume, since most undergraduate students specifically don’t graduate saying they’ve been the music director at a church,” Romero said.

Paul, over the course of four semesters at her church choir, has seen an improvement in her skills as a musician, ultimately benefiting her coursework.

“My sight reading has gotten a lot better while working at a church where we are going through quite a bit of music every week,” Paul said. “I’ve definitely noticed a difference in my Oberlin College Choir experience.”

Cohen also commented on the importance of the church job in a singer’s career after Oberlin.

“I never had any experience with church because I’m Jewish, so it was weird adjusting when I first got to Oberlin and heard people talk about how it’s so standard for singers to have church jobs,” Cohen said. “But now, I think it is very important for singers to get the experience they can working at churches, because there’s no church that doesn’t need singers every Sunday. I think that it’s such an easy and convenient way to pick up money and experience as a singer.”

But maybe what speaks most to the popularity of the church gig is the fact that a majority of Voice students dedicate their time to singing in these choirs.

“There’s a ton of churches around, and I would say that most Voice majors have church jobs,” Cohen said. “It can be very difficult if you’re missing a service to find a sub for that reason, because everyone already has a job. They’re already working Sunday morning. It’s very standard practice to have a church job, and I don’t think that that’s just the culture here. I think that that’s everywhere.”

“Jazz Forum provides invaluable opportunities to perform in front of an enthusiastic audience, discuss your work and receive feedback, [and] polish your stage presence,” Division of Jazz Studies Director and Professor of Jazz Trombone Jay Ashby said in the YouTube video “Oberlin Conservatory: About Jazz Forum.”

What I find currently lacking in Jazz Forum is an emphasis on dialogue. Forum should be a time where groups bring in their less polished material — pieces they’re struggling to refine. If you have any original compositions, bring them in to get input from others. Maybe you’re having trouble narrowing down the story or arc of your composition, or you’re not quite sure if the bridge should have a swing or even eighth note rhythm. Fortunately, your audience is full of talented, opinionated jazz musicians.

I think every audience member, Jazz major or not, has something they like and dislike about any given performance. However, I’ve noticed a hesitancy to voice those opinions when the time comes. Perhaps there’s a fear of coming off as too nitpicky, but that’s precisely why the space exists. If the band members can’t handle the finer critiques, maybe it’s time the musicians ask themselves: Am I going into this performance with the mindset of being receptive to feedback? The goal should be to approach Forum like a masterclass, except you’re playing for your friends and peers instead of a world-class musician — although, really, we’re all already professional musicians.

Back-and-forth conversation between the audience and performers is something I would really love to see more of during the feedback portion of Forum. Many of the audience’s comments aren’t clear-cut suggestions and would benefit from further elaboration. If you, the performer, truly want feedback, don’t just sit there and take it. Engage with it. Offer a justified rebuttal if you

Unfortunately, this time for discussion has been getting reduced by increasingly long set times. Forums tend to be more well-attended than concerts, despite the fact that students are usually busier at 12:15 p.m. on a Friday than at 7:30 p.m. on a Sunday. Audience engagement and energy can greatly affect the performers’ stage presence, and when the crowd is thin, it can be difficult to put on a good show. Consequently, I think that jazz ensembles squeeze as much music as possible into their forum sets to compensate for the lower turnout at concerts. 40-minute, four-song sets have become the new standard, despite there only being time for one 30-minute set per ensemble. What’s left is only a couple of minutes for feedback, which feels more like an obligation than an opportunity.

Additionally, the Cat in the Cream is a deceptively large venue; it claims to have capacity for 325 people. If 40 people show up to a jazz concert, which isn’t necessarily a small number, it can still feel quite empty — especially since we have a tendency to fill up the back of the room first. I myself have fallen into the trap of focusing my practice time on songs I’ll be playing at Forum because I know more people will hear it. For the concert, I’ll just wing it. When everyone in the group has this mentality, the concert may be more lackluster, furthering the cycle of low audience attendance.

This brings me to a potential solution for the concerts’ waning popularity: utilize the other amazing performance spaces in the Conservatory. If we want more people to come to jazz concerts, perhaps they could be held in a space other than the Cat in the Cream, which is so heavily associated with Jazz Forum. Having these concerts in the David H. Stull Recital Hall or the Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space, for instance, could help others realize that they are true showcases of talent not to be missed. Some ensembles have photoshoots and make posters for their concerts to be pinned up around campus or posted on an Instagram story. I think this is a fantastic idea, and I would encourage other groups to do the same. Any sort of self-promotion will emphasize the idea that concerts and Jazz Forum serve different and uniquely important purposes.

I don’t believe that Forum is living up to what it could be. I think shortening the Forum set times to allow for more discussion and putting more energy and intention behind concerts could help form a clearer distinction between Forums and concerts, further uplifting them both.