For Ryan Nealon, singing onstage is a breath of fresh air. Alongside his band Moonlight Express, the second-year ethnomusicology student has projected his voice from a recording studio in Melnitz Hall to JazzReggae Festival auditions this past spring. Nealon, lead vocalist for the band, organized Moonlight Express last fall with fellow students he met during […]
Author Archives: Max Mcgee
Bruin sees music as gateway to cultural studies
Music lays the foundation for everything from food, art forms, indigenous languages, spiritual exercise and entertainment in native cultures throughout the Americas, said ethnomusicology graduate student Jessie Vallejo. “Even in a lot of South American lowland and highland indigenous groups, there’s a really strong connection between chicha (corn beer) and music,” Vallejo said. “You have […]
Reggae artists, fans note growth of 2014 ‘Cali Roots’ fest
In a tribute to legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix, dreadlocked guitarist Trevor Young of roots reggae band SOJA sparked a flame to his guitar Friday night at The Bowl stage in Monterey, Calif., the same place Hendrix famously did so decades before. SOJA was one of several reggae bands that came together for the 5th […]
UCLA’s EDMC hosts benefit concert to fund cancer research
Two weeks before Elizabeth Matusov was going to tell her about the idea for the concert, Ashley Jensen-Pray passed away. Going forward with the project has been Matusov’s way of giving back to all that Jensen-Pray had gone through and her ability to provide comfort and care to other people during her own fight. The […]
Cali Roots reggae fest to feature top performers
On the same stage that Jimi Hendrix famously blazed his guitar into an inferno in 1967, the 5th annual California Roots Music and Arts Festival will feature top performers, young and old, of the reggae genre on Memorial Day weekend. The springtime climate of California’s Central Coast sets the backdrop for this year’s festival, hosted […]
Jazz group ‘The CD Collective’ to perform in Fowler Out Loud concert series
Within the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, first-year students typically form their own group, second-year students form their own group, and so on. First-year jazz studies student Cody Dear has challenged this dynamic with his latest project, The CD Collective, which mixes ethnomusicology students of different ages with their mutual interests in jazz music. […]
UCLA alumni band The Ten Thousand performs at Treehouse
As a crowd gathered in the main room of the Treehouse apartment complex, a venue within the Westwood Village music scene, the vocalist of The Ten Thousand, alumnus Kevin Daye, brought an energetic presence to the stage. In a set reminiscent of the heavy guitar riffs and vocals of Rage Against the Machine but with […]