“When I was going into fourth grade, my dad took me to a Chick Corea concert, and at first I was really hesitant to go because I had heard a Chick Corea CD before and it was boring solo piano, and I was like,  ‘I don’t want to see this.’ But I figured, free tickets, might as well go, what the hell. I went and it was just the craziest, most electrifying fusion rock-jazz music and it was just the greatest concert, and it made me realize that there are much different styles of jazz than what I was used to hearing, and that it wasn’t all the same. Because before then, I though it was only one style, and some of it I liked, and some of it I didn’t, but I realized there are many different styles and I realized that I had a lot of research to do. ”

-Julius Rodriguez, ’16