Jazz is back
Summer concert series held Fridays at Lutes Casino
After a year hiatus, the Lutes Summer Jazz Series has revived in Yuma, preserving a nearly 20-year tradition while offering a pastime for torrid Friday evenings.
Staged at Lutes Casino at 221 S. Main St., the series’ house band Yuma Jazz Company – comprised of trumpeter and flugelhorn player Steven Hennig, guitarist Jason Arviso, bassist Leo Neblina and percussionist Brandon Coz – will accompany guest artists and vocalists from the local music scene, including vocalists Jennifer Wayman Hart and Eloisa Arviso, trumpeters Amanda Dallabetta and Bryan Stewart and trombonist Ernie Ortega. The series will recur through Sept. 3 at no cover charge, with each performance spanning 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
According to Hennig, listeners can expect to hear a mix of original tunes and familiar favorites in a fun and casual atmosphere.
“There’s not a lot of the arts or live music going on during the summer; it’s a place for people to hear something live that’s of high quality,” he said. “I appreciate that opportunity, and the history of it. I think of all of the guests we’ve had there over the years, all of the performances and listeners in the audience – I really appreciate that it has continued on. It really is a neat experience altogether.”
Canceled last year owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s series aims to not only reinstate
the institution of live music, but to reconnect the community with one another, according to Hennig.
“Things like this, live performances, are part of the human experience,” he said. “There’s an element of human connection
that happens live that does not happen in a virtual concert. You can sit and listen to something and see it on your screen and you can appreciate that it’s well done, but there’s not that emotional, human connection that one gets when you’re listening to something
live – for the audience who is there in the presence of the musicians, and for the musicians in the presence of people who are actively listening.”
Individuals indifferent to the genre are encouraged to attend some part of the series as well, Hennig noted, as they might find jazz to be different from their preconceived notions.
“I think it’s important for people in general to, once in a while, try something new,” Hennig said. “I find each time we play in a new place, people will say, ‘I didn’t know jazz could sound like that; that wasn’t my impression of jazz.’ Jazz means a lot of different things to a lot of different people – for some people it’s Dixieland, for some people it’s big band jazz.”
For Yuma Jazz Company, jazz
is heavily improvised, interwoven with some classical elements and emotional connection with the audience, suggesting that the same listening experience rarely occurs twice.
“Each listening experience is unique, because you never know what’s going to happen next,” Hennig said. “It’s never going to be something that you have heard specifically that way before. When you hear tributes cover a song, it typically sounds like the record; this never sounds like the records, because each individual is improvising.”
More information on the Lutes Summer Jazz Series, which is sponsored by KAWC 88.9FM and KOFA 94.7FM Border Radio, can be found online at www.yumajazz.com.