Note: Each month, KPLU invites a teen guest DJ to play his or her favorite pieces on the air. The program is part of KPLU's School of Jazz.
Issaquah High School's Danny Quaranta is KPLU's guest DJ for the month of June. Danny's hour aired from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on June 4th. To get to know him better, we asked 17-year-old Danny to answer a few questions about jazz:
Which instrument do you play and why?
I was the classic "6th-grade clarinet for 1 year then switch to saxophone" kid, only my director set me up with a bass clarinet, which at the time was alright for me; a bigger instrument meant bigger buttons to press. When the next year rolled around, however, I was told I would be playing baritone instead of alto sax. At first I was hesitant, with my dad getting overly excited about how I would immediately become a competent groovy funk player the second I touched the horn, but it was whatever.
A year later a clipboard was passed around the band room for the kids that wanted to be in the jazz band. Me, having no intention of waking up early on Wednesday passed it on without a thought, only to receive a look of despair from my director. "Oh nononononono" he said, "I did not raise you on that instrument for you to wimp out of my band". Smiling, gesturing for the kid I just passed it to to pass it back to me, I reluctantly printed my name in illegible print and never turned back.
What’s your all-time favorite jazz piece and why?
Without a doubt, Body and Soul is my all-time favorite chart. Most people, myself included, usually picture beauty in our minds when we hear the word. I believe this song to be the best representation of what beauty sounds like.
Who’s your jazz hero and why?
This question took an hour or two of thought to answer, but I'd say Bill Evans in the end inspires me to stay true to music. It sounds like a meaningless and cliché thing to say, but Evans was the kind of guy who would wait 27 months after released his debut album despite the constant pestering of the label because, simply put, "Evans did not feel, during the intervening period, that he had anything new to say".
What is jazz, exactly? How would you explain it?
Jazz to me is nothing more than a music genre, so I'll put a quote here:
"Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe. . . That’s what I would like to do. I think that’s one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musician’s is through his music." - John Coltrane
Danny's Set List:
- “The Way You Look Tonight” Sonny Rollins/Thelonious Monk – self titled
- “Rue Serpente” Pepper Adams – The Master
- “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” Oscar Peterson – Night Train
- “Dancing In The Dark” Cannonball Adderley – Somethin’ Else
- “Nardis” Bill Evans - Explorations
- “Dear Old Stockholm” Miles Davis – ‘Round About Midnight
- “El Is A Sound Of Joy” Sun Ra – Sound of Joy
- “La Pasionaria” Michel Legrand – Le Jazz Grand
- “Here’s That Rainy Day” Stan Getz – Getz Au Go Go
- “Body And Soul” John Coltrane – Coltrane’s Sound
