Big Band plays in Saddleback Mckinney Theatre
Ron Stout conducts the Big Band (Alyssa Hunter)
The Saddleback Big Band performed a jazzy musical ensemble at the McKinney Theatre last Wednesday.
The performance was conducted by Ron Stout, a freelance musician and jazz educator at Saddleback College.
“My experience with Big Band started here at Saddleback,” said Stout. He began taking classes at the college when he was fourteen, while his mother was enrolled as a student at Saddleback.
The Band played music by well know composers like Bill Holman, Tom Kubis and Thad Jones.
Ron Stout squeezed to get each player their own feature in the performance.
Mike Mays, a member of the Big Band, played an outstanding saxophone solo in the opening piece called “Zoot” by Bill Holman.
The musical ensemble “Tip Toe” by Thad Jones featured a solo by trumpet player Steve Wade and a saxophone solo by Spencer Wiles.
Spencer Wiles, a music major and also the band’s star alto player, put together an arrangement that he wrote and the band played.
Wiles’s arrangement was called “Yes and No” and featured a solo by fellow saxophonist Chris Calbon and a trumpet solo by Ryan Quast.
Stout used to play with Tom Kubis in the Orange County Rhythm Machine. In appreciation of Kubis, the band played one of his original arrangements called “Just Friends”.
The band also played one of Joey Sellers’ arrangements. Sellers, the head of the jazz department, is greatly appreciated by the Big Band.
The last piece was called “Some Other Time” which Sellers originally wrote for a vocalist. But Stout liked the piece so much that he begged Sellers to use it for the band.
Stout opened “Some Other Time” with his own trumpet solo. The music was exhilarating and lively. Wiles was also featured in a saxophone solo for this piece.
“The band played effortlessly. Everyone did their part like they were at home and happy,” said Doug Sutterhome, a member of the Saddleback Master Choral and the South County Sound Barber Shop chorus.
“Big band is one of my favorite types of music and the Saddleback Big Band did it Justice,” Sutterhome said.