Alumnus ready to jazz Bear's Place

Jacobs School of Music alumnus and jazz musician Marcos Cavalcante will perform Brazilian-style jazz with faculty members at 5:30 p.m. in the back room of Bear’s Place Ale House and Eatery for the Jazz Fable’s Concert Series.

The cover price for the concert is $7 at the door. “There can be anywhere from 40 to 100 people or more,” General Manager of the venue Logan Neumann said. “We’ll get some students — mostly music students. Other than that it’s somewhat of an older crowd.”

The event is one of the many concerts as well as showcases that occur at Bear’s Place, located at 1316 E. Third St.

Musicians include faculty and graduate students and featured artists who happen to be in the Bloomington area. The concert series was started by David Miller in 1989 and features jazz performers from the Jacobs School.

“We have a lot of Bloomington artists in the series,” Miller said. “It’s different every week.”

Cavalcante, who is originally from Bahia, Brazil, graduated from IU with his masters in jazz and a doctoral degree in classical guitar.

Miller explained that this concert is not the first Cavalcante has performed for the Jazz Fable’s series. In fact, Cavalcante has performed with most of the other performers in this show in the past.

The group will play original Brazilian jazz compositions of Cavalcante’s and pieces from composers such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Hermeto Pascoal and
Guinga.

However, calling the music that Cavalcante performs “Brazilian jazz” seems to be inaccurate, according to Cavalcante.

“It’s not called Brazilian jazz in Brazil,” he said. “The reason it’s called ‘Brazilian jazz’ is generally because in jazz festivals, the harmony is more sophisticated than mainstream, commercial music. Jazz is an American thing.”

— Raven Carpenter