Cuesta teachers to jam at SLO jazz concert

For Central Coast jazz fans, few events generate the same kind of excitement as the annual Cuesta Faculty Jazz Concert.

But there’s one San Luis Obispo native who might be even more excited than the rest: classical pianist Alex Kato-Willis, who’s in his second year of teaching at Cuesta College.

He’ll perform with the community college’s jazz faculty members Friday at Cuesta’s Cultural and Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo, marking the first time an instructor from Cuesta’s classical music department has joined in the fun.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing how an audience that goes to jazz concerts reacts to this,” said Kato-Willis, who specializes in improvisation. “The harmony is so different and the music is so different but the improvisation is the same.”

In addition to saxophone player Ron McCarley, director of jazz studies at Cuesta College, and John Knutson, director of choral studies at Cuesta College, Friday’s lineup features several stalwarts of the Central Coast music scene. Among them: woodwind player David Becker, pianist/trumpeter George Stone, singer Inga Swearingen, percussionist Darrell Voss and bassists Dylan Johnson and Ken Hustad.

Los Angeles-based guitarist Jeff Miley also will perform. (Along with Johnson, he appears on Swearingen’s album “Let Me Call This Home,” released Aug. 27.)

According to McCarley, Cuesta’s jazz instructors conform closely to the school’s requirements for its music faculty members: “They should be good performers and they should be talking about something they know about, instead of something they’ve studied.”

“I’ve never played with another faculty that was even close to the ability of this faculty,” McCarley said. “They really know how to put on a good concert.”

Friday’s concert coincides with the release of the Cuesta jazz department’s latest album, “Both Sides.” The 12-track collection features songs performed by faculty members, the Cuesta Jazz Ensemble and the Cuesta College Jazz Orchestra, as well as four combos — Cool Notes, Sperdak, Toy Boat and Umlaüt. (DownBeat magazine named Sperdak the best community college small jazz combo in the nation in 2015.)

Although none of the student groups will perform at Friday’s concert, the program will feature one of the cuts from “Both Sides” — Duke Ellington’s “Love You Madly.”

Other selections from the set list include “Birdlike” by Freddie Hubbard, “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” by Abbey Lincoln and “Yernin’” and “Hoe Down” by Oliver Nelson.

In addition, McCarley said the faculty members will play “Pure Imagination” from the 1964 movie “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in honor of star Gene Wilder, who died Aug. 29.

But a major highlight will be Kato-Willis’s performance.

“I make up all the melodies, everything on the spot. There’s nothing I’m basing this on,” the pianist said, explaining that there’s a tradition of improvisation in classical music dating to Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. “You can make up a piece that’s designed for the audience … custom made for the people who are there. It takes a lot of brainwork and physical exertion.”

The Cal Poly graduate, who earned his master’s degree and doctorate at USC, relishes the challenge.

“I really want to create music that is alive. That really is important, I think,” he said.

McCarley feels confident that local concertgoers will appreciate Kato-Willis’s efforts.

“He spends so much time performing for people who don’t totally get what improvisation is about,” McCarley said. “Jazz audiences totally do.”

According to McCarley, the Cuesta Jazz Faculty Concert serves as a reminder that Cuesta’s faculty members are vibrant members of the local music community as well as teachers.

McCarley performs Sept. 16 at Coalesce Bookstore and Garden Chapel in Morro Bay as part of the Adam Levine-Ron McCarley Quartet. McCarley described the group’s sound as “hard bop” — or “classic jazz, post-bebop” with some Steely Dan-style fusion thrown in for good measure.

“Adam (Levine) is such a great player. … Everything he plays feels good and is interesting,” McCarley said of the guitarist. “If it feels good and it’s interesting, it’s good jazz. If not, it’s bad jazz.”

This story was originally published September 8, 2016 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Cuesta teachers to jam at SLO jazz concert."