Pacific Standard Time, an award-wining vocal jazz ensemble from Cal State Long Beach, performs in this undated photo. Photo courtesy of CSULB.
3:45pm | A vocal jazz ensemble from Cal State Long Beach has been creating quite a buzz lately, recently earning top honors at the Next Generation Jazz Festival and being named the best collegiate vocal jazz ensemble in the nation by DownBeat Magazine.
The group, Pacific Standard Time, will celebrate its accomplishments and close out the 2010-11 season with a performance this Friday, April 29, during a spring concert with Jazz N’ Tonic, another CSULB vocal jazz ensemble, at the University Theatre.
Pacific Standard Time just learned that DownBeat named has named it the winner of the 2010 DownBeat Award for Best Vocal Jazz Ensemble in the collegiate division as part of the magazine’s 34th annual Student Music Awards list, according to information provided by CSULB spokesman Rick Gloady.
The magazine selects a roster of the very best in student jazz from all over the nation, giving recognition to middle school, high school, college and university programs, along with kudos for individual efforts by arrangers, soloists and composers.
“The vocal jazz program has received awards for five of the last six years,” said Christine Guter, CSULB’s director of vocal jazz, in a statement. “Last year, Pacific Standard Time received ‘outstanding performance’ for its submission, but this is the first time our program has been named winner of the collegiate vocal jazz category.”
Jeff Jarvis, head of Jazz Studies at CSULB, said the department is “very proud” of the students in the group.
“Since 1934 DownBeat Magazine has been a leading voice for jazz and jazz education. The awards earned by our Cole Conservatory jazz students are major accomplishments,” Jarvis said in a statement.
The news comes just a few weeks after the ensemble captured top honors at The Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival, where it earned 299 out of a possible 300 points in the Collegiate Vocal Ensemble Division from a trio of adjudicators, Gloady said.
Guter said she’s “never seen scores like that in my life.”
For its accomplishment, the ensemble has been invited back to perform at the 54th annual Monterey Jazz Festival in September, and the university received a $1,000 award for its vocal jazz program.
“I’m tremendously proud of my students, and the hard work and dedication they have demonstrated to get to such a high level of music making and artistry,” Guter said, adding that “the greatest honor is getting to come back and perform” at the festival this fall.
“It will be an experience that will greatly impact our young singers’ musical journeys, and one they will never forget,” she said.
CSULB’s Concert Jazz Orchestra, conducted by Jarvis, also earned honors at the Next Generation Festival, placing third in the College Big Band Division.
Both groups were finalists, invited to the competition after being selected as one of the top six entries in their category based on submissions from all over the country, Gloady said.
Pacific Standard Time is a “highly select” 12-member ensemble whose members are required to possess refined musicianship and improvisational skills, Gloady said. The group performs a wide variety of vocal music in the jazz genre.
“This is a pretty new group and they have really exceeded my expectations,” Guter explained. “Seven of the 12 singers have never worked with me before this year. I just express my expectations with them and encourage them to work their hardest and strive for excellence at all times.”
The ensemble has performed at the International Association of Jazz Education Convention in Toronto, the American Choral Directors Association Convention in Salt Lake City, the California Music Education Association convention in Sacramento. Pacific Standard Time has additionally toured California and the Pacific Northwest, and most recently the group performed at both the L.A. Jazz Institute Festival and the Newport Beach and West Coast jazz parties, Gloady said.
Pacific Standard Time and Jazz N’ Tonic will perform at the University Theatre this Friday, April 29, at 8 p.m. General admission tickets are $10, or $7 for students, and can be purchased by clicking here.