The lights lower as a group of five students take the stage at the Cal Poly Performing Arts Center. Each with a different instrument in hand, they prepare to share their own unique sound and passion for jazz music.
This group is one of Cal Poly’s Jazz Combos, groups of students who explore arranging and playing jazz music in small groups of three to five students.
“I think playing in the combos has given me an idea of how I can keep music going in my future,” Oscar Cervarich, an interdisciplinary studies freshman and jazz combo member said. “Just starting and participating in it is really how you can start to further your music career, all of that I am interested in.”
Cervarich plays jazz piano in a five person combo with his bandmates on drums, bass, saxophone and trumpet. The combos are led by Dylan Johnson, a veteran jazz musician and music professor at Cuesta and Cal Poly.
“We do a lot more self-instructing than I thought. We have two meetings a week; one of them we lead ourselves and the other is led by our instructor Dylan Johnson,” Cervarich said. “He’s super awesome and he gives us a lot of tips, but it’s also nice to have our own rehearsal schedule and be pretty autonomous when choosing what tunes to play and how we want to do stuff.”
At Cal Poly, several jazz bands exist—the jazz ensemble, vocal jazz, and jazz combos—all of which require students to audition and then enroll in classes led by music professors.
Unlike the jazz combos, the jazz ensemble has a full band of students. While the jazz ensemble students learn to play with a large group and practice reading prearranged music, Ceravarich said that jazz combos students arrange their music themselves and have more freedom musically.
“For the jazz combos, we get a lead sheet, which is the bare bones of the music, and then we get to decide if we want to mess with the form at all,” Cervarich said. “It’s much more freeform and loose, because you can toss solo’s around, making it less prescribed.”
For the combo students, this could mean adjusting the intro or outro of the song and deciding on the song’s solos.
Johnson, the combo’s professor, said this process requires a strong communication between bandmates, due to the nature of a small group.
“It creates a very different atmosphere and it’s more like a band,” Johnson said. “It’s a more intimate setting, where they all have to learn to work together and deal with the democratic process of being in a small group.”
Johnson has lead the jazz combos at Cal Poly since fall of 2023. He is a bass player, having played for 25-30 years in the industry, with experience playing in New York City and now on the Central Coast.
“What I try to focus on with the combos is trying to see if I can prepare them so that I could actually hire them in my band,” Johnson said. “It’s an opportunity for me to teach them some things that wouldn’t be offered at Cal Poly, for instance, how to deal with the business side of things.”
This means helping the students to work cohesively as a group, book gigs, connect with the audience and exercise professionalism while playing.
The combos often get opportunities to play gigs in the surrounding community, which Johnson is able to support them in as a local jazz musician.
English junior Jonny Ball plays the drum set in his combo. He said that playing gigs is one of his favorite parts because smaller performances are more fun and intimate.
“We played at a brewery last quarter, which was really fun,” Ball said. “I like smaller gigs where there’s more audience interaction.”
Cervarich’s combo also recently played at an assisted living facility in Paso Robles for a Mardi Gras themed party.
“We played some New Orleans tunes,” Cervarich said. “Being able to bring live music to especially older people was super nice. There were so many smiles, and it was a really awesome event.”
The three combos have an upcoming performance on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 pm. The combos showcase will be free in the Davidson Music Center room 218, where each combo will be performing five to six songs.
“It’s a combos only concert where they are each going to play a full set of music,” Johnson said. “They’ll be able to spread their weeks a little bit and play some of the other stuff they’ve been working on.”