MSJ in the News (continued)

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I had adult students who were taking private lessons from me, and they were interested in expanding their jazz experiences," said Antoniuk, 40, who has played on about 25 jazz albums and leads a band called Jazz Update that is releasing its first album this summer.

Drawing instructional help from his colleagues in the East Coast jazz community, he held the inaugural session last summer and, when it proved a success, decided to make it an annual event.

For three days, campers come together for eight hours a day for in-depth instruction in everything from theory to hand position. They tested their mettle during improvisation sessions that often sounded so polished that listeners could have sworn the group had played together for years. Lunch was catered by Antoniuk's wife, Terry.

Campers performed such popular jazz standards as "The Girl From Ipanema," by Antonio Carlos Jobim, and "All Blues," by Miles Davis, and more modern tunes such as Pat Metheny's "Song for Bilbao," honing the improvisational skills necessary for any good jazz performer.

"That's what it's all about -- learning how to improvise and feeling comfortable with it," said Josh Katzen, 57, a shopping center developer who traveled from Boston for the camp. Katzen played trumpet as a child, ventured into piano in high school and plays cello in a jazz quartet and a string quartet with his wife, Amelia.

"That's also the fun part about playing jazz -- playing your part, your solo, then hearing how all the solos fit together to make music," Katzen said.

The campers ranged in age from 17 -- Matthew Gallo of Silver Spring, who attended on scholarship because of his exemplary playing -- to 75-year-old John Perito of Silver Spring, a retired psychologist who plays piano.

Some of the band campers said they enrolled to polish up their playing; others said they wanted to help their children with music lessons. A few around retirement age said they planned to get into playing for a second career or at least a hobby that would earn them some pocket change.

Among the youngest campers was drummer Andrew Green, 19, of McLean, who switched to jazz 18 months ago after playing classical music for several years. During a session with Antoniuk, Katzen and others, he held his own with the older players on a sexy rendition of "Summertime," by George Gershwin, from the musical "Porgy and Bess."

"Even though I don't know Andrew's playing that well, I could tell from what I've seen today that he would be able to handle it," Antoniuk said.

Then, turning to Green: "Besides, I kind of like seeing you sweat."

Dave Lorentz, 61, of Takoma Park -- who helped build the old USA Today building in Rosslyn, a half-dozen bridges and 17 Metro stations as a construction ironworker -- said he has been playing the piano off and on since teaching himself at age 14. He plans to put together a Kansas City-style jazz band when he retires next year.

"There was straight swing like Benny Goodman and Kansas City- style jazz like Count Basie, which is more in the area that I like," said Lorentz, founder of Takoma Park JazzFest. "It's less formally arranged and more intuitive -- more blues-based."

Lorentz was one of the calmer students during a jazz improvisation exercise led by renowned drummer Tony Martucci. The class was, according to the course description, "an improvisation- based group experimenting with instrumentation, texture and group playing," which meant that at any minute, Martucci might point to any of them to play a solo.

But before he did, there was a lesson.

The idea behind playing jazz, he told them, was to communicate with the audience, to enjoy playing the music.

"You are playing something of your life, no matter what your experiences have been," Martucci said. "People won't know you are doing that, but if you are in that place where there is something of real substance happening, they will get that."

On improvised pieces he nicknamed "Mold in My Basement Blues" and "Barbecue and Booty," Martucci's students took turns. Despite her apprehension, Wright, who said she enrolled for much needed "fun," played beautifully.

"That was great!" Martucci said after the session.

Spiegel, who said he draws a blank for a second every time he prepares to solo, gave himself a good grade for incorporating a riff he had heard on the drums into his saxophone solo.

Antoniuk might be giving the campers A's, too.

"Music has been a part of their lives since they were kids," he said, "and while a lot of them made the sensible choice to pursue law, being a cop or fill-in-the-blank, once you love music and have played it that love doesn't go away."

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Camp gets musicians jazzed about return to scene (continued)

Marcus is typical of the 36 campers from all over Maryland and Virginia who came to the church on Old Georgetown Road for the opportunity of learning and playing with Antoniuk and other area jazz musicians like trombone player Jim McFalls and keyboard player Wade Beach.

Originally from Texas, Marcus played in his high school band, but put the flute aside for professional pursuits for 30 years, he said.

He picked it up again seven years ago and has since gone to similar jazz camps.

"It was an opportunity to play with both students and faculty who are more experienced than I am," he said. [It's] one of the ways I improve."

For Antoniuk, who lives in Annapolis, the camp was the next logical step in building a network of jazz enthusiasts in the Washington-Baltimore area. The Canadian-born Antoniuk, 40, has been performing and composing jazz for more than 20 years, in addition to teaching at Towson University.

He has long focused on introducing school children to jazz, playing to about 10,000 kids a year through a program of the Washington Performing Arts Society. But it is only in the last few years that he started to attract a following of adult students. Many had been listening to jazz for years, he said, but there "was not much opportunity for folks to play with each other."

Antoniuk put them together in master classes -- small group sessions where students learn and jam -- which in turn led to requests for a summer jazz camp. Antoniuk enlisted band members McFall, Beach, bass player Tom Baldwin, guitarist Steve Herberman and drummers Tony Martucci and Frank Russo as teachers, and his wife, Terry, a caterer, to take care of meals. A student who was also a member at St. Mark's hooked him up with the church. The price for the three-day intensive was $405.

The schedule mixed instructor mini-concerts with intensive classes in jazz improvisation, focusing on standard tunes like "Summertime" and "Take the A-Train." Students also had regular opportunities to jam with the professionals.

Riley McDonald, 66, of Columbia is another late-blooming musician, who picked up his saxophone again after a 50-year hiatus. He plays with a community band, but performed his first jazz solo at the camp.

The experience, he said, changed his relationship with his horn.

"I [had] never got to the point where I loved the sound I made," he said. "But I find myself liking the sound."

Elaine Levit, 41, a speech pathologist from Annapolis, is in one of Antoniuk's master classes, but came to the camp for a "total immersion."

Trained in classical piano, Levit said playing jazz keyboards gets her "charged up. It's an adrenaline rush."

So, how do you teach improvisation? Antoniuk said it's like a conversation, with music as the language and a specific song as the subject. "There's a dynamic to how seven people interact," he said. "We spend a lot of time learning the language, a lot of time learning the subject. [Then] we have a conversation."

He also has a lot of respect for his students and the risks they take to start playing an instrument after years in the professional world. They are "high-level people who manage other people," he said. "They all agree to come here and screw up in front of each other."

Antoniuk said he is committed to keeping the camp going for at least another two years and may expand it to five days. And he hopes to reach more adult musicians, playing alone in their basements.

"I'm a jazz matchmaker," he said. "Once you play music, that bug doesn't go away.

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