Reviewer: Mark DeWolf-Ott
Venue: Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum
It was a beautiful setting for a jazz concert by candlelight. Beautiful music floating through the marble walled gallery of plaster cast by Royal Oak, Mi sculptor, Marshall Fredericks.
Jeremiah Kraniak, Saginaw Choral Society Artistic Director, did a great job of selecting the jazz favorites for the evening. He chose songs from The Great American Songbook like Anything Goes by Cole Porter, Someone to Watch Over Me by the Gershwin brothers, and What a Wonderful World made famous by Louis Armstrong. Then he mixed it up a bit with some more contemporary standards such as Come Away with Me by Nora Jones, Fairy Tales by Anita Baker and I Can’t Make You Love Me, made popular by Bonnie Raitt. It truly was a good selection of songs with a nice variety of styles.
The performers: Stephanie Bale, Uduak Bellomy, Danielle Davis, Jim Smerdon, Kim Streby, and Bethany Tomasino did an awesome job of performing. They were accompanied by the Voortex Jazz Band. There was quite a bit of head bopping, toe tapping, swaying, and even some people got up to dance. The evening could only have been topped by some people attending dressed as beatniks.
This concert was the last one of three “boutique” concerts. They are shorter in length, about 40 minutes to an hour long, a smaller group of talent, and preceded by cocktails and appetizers. The first was at the Andersen Enrichment Center Garden with a theme on nature and outdoors. The second was Appalachian music by candlelight at the Castle Museum, Saginaw Historical Society.
The season’s grand finale concert, Titians of Music, is Saturday, April 26, 2025, at the Temple Theatre at 3 PM. It will feature the entire chorale. The music featured will be by Mozart and Beethoven played by a 24-piece orchestra.
The Jazz Mosaic was a pleasant way to break up a snowy week in February in Michigan.