Oakland University offers many exclusive clubs to fulfill creative wishes of students — one of which being the Golden Grizzly Jazz Singers.
The Golden Grizzly Jazz Singers visited the Pontiac Little Art Theatre in downtown Pontiac on Thursday, Feb. 1, to give their group of singers a chance at the stage.
The Pontiac Little Art Theatre, also known as the PLAT, offered an intimate yet elegant backdrop for the singers’ performances. The venue, first created in 1868, holds deep roots within the city of Pontiac, and it’s great to see university students within it.
The show opened up with students and professors alike performing on a xylophone-like instrument from Ghana called a Gyil. Beautiful mixes of sound came from the percussion instruments and was informative for anyone who had no knowledge of the instrument.
Singers went up one by one to perform a solo and get comfortable with the stage. It was a very fascinating scene to see the students and pianist Professor Scott Gwinnell work out their song and tempo onstage just seconds before their performance.
“It’s no big deal, we’re just having fun up here,” Gwinell said as the show began.
One of the first students who went up onto the stage was OU junior Zachary Andrews who had been in band before joining the group.
“I joined just because I already knew what I thought was enough, but I’ve learned so much more since then. I got more interested and learned about so many more musicians and styles. I would tell someone to do this and to learn more jazz in general,” Andrews said.
The group offers the stage to anyone who wants it but also furthers their learning and understanding of music as a whole.
“If you like any sort of modern music, jazz is the origin for pretty much any sort of modern American style of music. From rock to pop, to whatever you could think of, its origins are usually jazz,” Andrews continued.
Another student who participated in Thursday’s show was OU freshman and trained classical pianist Martyna Gogolkiewicz.
“It’s really fun. It’s not only work, it’s mostly work combined with just having fun and making new friends, it just kind of feels like family. Concerts are the best part of it all. Once we have the concerts it really shows how hard we worked,” Gogolkiewicz said.
That truly reflected during the performances. It felt like a hang-out session some really talented group of friends just so happened to be at.
Songs like “Blue Moon,” “Lullaby of Birdland” and “Orange Colored Sky” were performed and felt amazing to sit through.
The PLAT held a jam session after the students finished their performances — and holds one every Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
If you would like to attend future events with the singers, the OU Golden and Blue Grizzly Jazz Singers Ensemble will be performing in Varner Hall on Friday, April 12 at 8 p.m. You can find details and tickets on the OU events calendar.
OUy also has other jazz bands including those of Latin jazz. Any student is welcome to attend these events, and I encourage them to do so.
