Murder and Adultery, one of the jazz combos at Long Beach City College, played a surprise performance in the courtyard outside the auditorium at the Liberal Arts Campus on April 18.
The jazz combo class is for student jazz musicians to come together and collaborate on their own music with little to no advisory from professors.
Despite being a surprise performance, a significant crowd gathered to watch the live musicians.
“We have a really strong music program at LBCC, I just think not a lot of people know about it,” said freshman alto saxophonist Joshua Woofter.
Community and group events are a rare thing at LBCC so it is notable that such a crowd gathered to watch live music together.
Sophomore pianist Noah Ishikawa believes the live performances on campus help to build community.
“Yeah it builds community, I mean look at this turnout,” said Ishikawa.
The set ended with a jazz jam where anyone from the crowd could join in if they brought their instrument and fellow music majors joined in for the performance.
Connections from the players led to energy from the crowd erupting in cheering and applause in big moments during the performance.
“My favorite thing about performance is probably interacting with other musicians,” said Ishikawa.
The nature of the performance being outside and such a quick setup meant some challenges for the musicians.
“It’s never perfect playing outside, but I think with only 20 minutes of setup time, we did pretty good,” Woofter said.
The jazz combo program holds showcases at DiPiazza’s restaurant every few months, and the next one will be on Thursday, May 9 at 7:00 p.m.