“What I love to do is to make music,” Clark said. “I study music and I play music. Anybody would be happy to work in their field by night, the same field they study during the day.”
Clark has played electric guitar since he was 13. When most kids his age couldn’t legally drive a car, Clark was part of a classic rock cover band performing in bars.
While playing in front of others can be intimidating, Clark said jamming in a biker bar when he was 15-years-old prepared him for any crowd.
Because jazz requires greater involvement and interaction among band members, Clark said, playing it is far different from most genres.
“Playing in a jazz setting is unlike any other, just because there’s so much improvisation and communication,” Clark said. “We’re up there, we’re all bouncing ideas off each other, letting the song become our own, putting our own spin on it.”
MSU alumnus and soon-to-be jazz studies graduate student Joe Vasquez said his favorite aspect of playing jazz is “digging into something deep, musically, with your friends and peers.”
At JazzFest, Vasquez was part of the Corey Kendrick Trio, an ensemble comprised of MSU students and alumni who had been jamming together but “never really did anything official like (JazzFest).”
Gigging, jamming and creating various ensembles with the other students in the jazz studies program happens often, Vasquez said.
“We all gig around Lansing all the time,” he said. “We all gig around with different groups. We’re always around representing the program.”
JazzFest attracted people from across the state. Grand Blanc resident Richard Robinson has attended JazzFest every year for the past ten years, “almost as an alternative to going to the one in Detroit.”
Robinson, 67, started listening to jazz when he was 17. Jazz is the music that “makes me feel good,” he said.
“Well, I used to play in a band,” he said. “The music is what brings the words. You got to have a rhythm.”
