Valentine’s Day is no longer just for the lovebirds out there.
The second annual Valentine’s Night put on by the Cultural Affairs Commission is an event for singles and couples alike to come out and enjoy an evening of jazz, regardless of relationship status.
A special part of the Monday Night Jazz Series, Valentine’s Night features singers from the UCLA Vocal Jazz Department who will sing about affection, heartbreak and being in love with love, along with the standard ballads. The event will take place tonight in Kerckhoff Coffeehouse.
While a normal Monday night at the coffeehouse features mainly jazz instrumentalists’ jams, the special event focuses on the jazz vocalists from the department, which proved to be popular with the audience last year.
“Valentine’s Night is a continuation of what we do each Monday,” said Kat Horstmann, a fourth-year international development studies student and codirector of the series. “The only difference is that we’re upping the entertainment for the evening. The (jazz singers’) vibe has a broader spectrum and can reach a bigger audience.”
The evening will not skimp on the jazz instrumentals either, with pianists and a rhythm section from the jazz department accompanying the four singers scheduled to perform.
Alex Isley, a fourth-year jazz studies student, is one of the singers who will be performing jazz standards about love.
The songs Isley will be singing will not single out the couples in the audience. They also won’t alienate those who may find themselves without that special someone to bring them a bouquet of red roses on that often-more-dreaded-than-anticipated day.
Isley’s ballad “Angel Eyes,” of Ella Fitzgerald fame, is a ballad about being heartbroken and finding oneself without that special someone when it seems to matter most.
“The way I interpreted it is that something is missing with the person who I gave my heart to gone,” Isley said. “I have to figure out what I’m living for and fill that void.”
With heartbreak covered in the repertoire, Isley will also touch on the happier side of finding yourself in love with another jazz standard called “I’m Old Fashioned.” More upbeat than “Angel Eyes,” it’s about not caring about new fads but instead about love ““ a trend that never goes out of style.
“We also cater to the couples,” Isley said. “Some songs focus on the happier side of love. … It is a pretty good balance.”
Valentine’s Night will also serve as a promotion for the regular jazz series that occurs on Mondays. It will allow people who attend to see what these events have to offer.
“It’s sort of an advertisement for our regular Monday nights at Kerckhoff. This event is more visually entertaining and has more structure than the really informal jam session however,” Horstmann said.
“My hope is that people will come see this event and see that there’s more than what you stereotypically think of jazz music.”
Besides providing an opportunity for audience members to open their minds and just groove to some jazz, the planning committee also offered the sweet incentive of free Sprinkles cupcakes to the first 50 people who RSVP’d on the event’s Facebook page.
“We scaled the event down from last year but decided to have a little something sweet for the audience as a gift from the jazz series,” Horstmann said. “And Sprinkles is just amazing. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Sprinkles.”
Second-year ethnomusicology student Zach Meyerowitz is one of the people behind the event’s planning and is responsible for publicity. He is also in charge of picking up the cupcakes donated by Sprinkles in support of the event.
“In the grand scheme of things, … I am here to get people to come out and hear great music,” Meyerowitz said.
Little details like free cupcakes and the friendly setup of the Kerckhoff Coffeehouse should help draw in a more mainstream crowd to see what the Monday Night Jazz Series is all about.
The singers are only limited in their performance by time and genre, which ““ appropriately for the event ““ just about always deal with love or heartbreak. The rest of the night, true to jazz’s improvised nature, is up to the performers.