By: Daniel Correa

10/30/24

Poster designed by Vanessa Haubold

Disclaimer: I played saxophone in Take Five, so take my opinions on that piece with a grain of salt.

Friday, September 27th, at 11:30 in the Music Room, Field’s first official Tiny Lunch Concert began. Among the crowd, students from upper and lower schools, and even teachers waited to witness this momentous occasion. The set list was short, with only one song, Take Five by Don Brubeck Quartet, a jazz classic. The musicians performing were Nate H. on drums, Misha M. on piano, Chase M. on bass, and myself on Saxophone. 

 Music teacher and head of Tiny Lunch Concerts at Field, Charlie Baker, revealed that Take Five was the song that would be played that afternoon, and then, without further ado, the musicians began to play.

After a few bars of introductory drum and piano chords, I began to play the melody on my saxophone. 

What makes Take Five special is that it is in 5/4 time (hence the name), which for non-musicians means that the rhythm of the song goes 1-2-3-4-5,1-2-3-4-5. It is one of the most famous songs in 5/4 time and because of its relatively simple composition, yet unorthodox time signature, and is a popular song for Jazz players both new and experienced.

The order of the solo section was Sax-Piano-Drums, then back to the beginning to repeat, and then ending. Misha’s Piano solo went great and he did a good job in playing off of what I had done with my solo. 

Although the real star of the show was Nate with his great drum solo, he had put a lot of practice into replicating the original recording’s drum solo.

Finally, after the drum solo, they returned to the song’s beginning and ran it through to the end. The band reached the song’s ending, with the Saxophonist finishing it off on a low C, a perfect landing.

The audience loved every minute of it and gave us all a round of applause for our performance. 

Afterward, many students expressed their enjoyment of the performance. Aidan S., a Junior in the and a fellow band member of mine (though not performing in this concert) reminisced on the performance, saying “I thought it was pretty good… For only practicing for a week they did well.” Aidan didn’t take the title of “Tiny Lunch Concert” too seriously. “I didn’t have lunch today.” but he will have to remember to eat in two weeks, because I’m sure he doesn’t want to be performing with an empty stomach at the next Tiny Lunch, “Oh yeah, I’ll be playing in two weeks!” It will certainly be an equally exciting performance with Aidan playing. 

Afterward, Charlie and I were discussing the origins of Tiny Lunch. “I was chatting with a colleague who lives in Arizona, and we were talking about how students can use and learn music skills and he told me that a great way was to have weekly concerts to teach and spread learning about music.” He adds,“It was also of course inspired by NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert which is where obscure artists and musicians get to perform live.” 

Charlie went on to explain how he was able to organize the concert. “It was crowdsourced, I asked students who I know have ideas about what to perform, it is student-driven.” Discussing the success of the concert, he said “It was pretty popular last year, this year we are doing a lot more to make it bigger, we are going to live stream and record performances. And we are also going to implement a lot of live effects and lighting.” When it came to what students can expect to see in the next concert, he said that students, “are definitely gonna see several different groups, at least three. There’s going to be Queen, original music, and more jazz.”

With the huge success of the first Tiny Lunch Concert, Field Students can expect to find new and exciting performances coming up. The next performance is on November 8th, at lunchtime, in the music room, and it is certain to be another wonderful experience.