Album Notes

When we first began this project a year and a half ago, we were, shall we say, cautiously optimistic. We wanted to see what we could do to increase jazz activity in the Oswego community while providing valuable experience for our students. We hoped that people might want to come to our weekly sessions and listen. Our expectations and hopes were greatly surpassed! It is thrilling to see so many familiar faces at King Arthur’s on Wednesday nights---it is equally exciting to see new folks drop in to check out the music and enjoy the atmosphere.
We are especially happy with the large number of our students who now play with us regularly and are pleased to feature a track on this album which was performed and mixed entirely by our students (“Tug”). For current Oswego students and alumni, we have included a version of the “Alma Mater” which we hope you will enjoy.
It has been exciting to grow together as a group and explore jazz standards as well as create some new music. We love playing standards and have included two here, but we wanted to highlight another aspect of our group in this album by featuring mostly original songs: two pieces (and one arrangement) by Rob Auler, and four by myself.
We hope that you will enjoy this, our second effort, and will continue to support live jazz in Oswego!

-- Eric Schmitz