The Jason Caplan Quartet, Yeshiva's newest band, is playing its first off-campus gig tonight at The Elbow Room, a Village location known for its high-quality musical performers. Having played several informal gigs with only some of its members at Yeshiva's Arts Festival events this year, JCQ is anxious to play its first concert as a complete band. Featuring RIETS student Jason Caplan on lead guitar, YC sophomores Anthony Wexler on backup guitar, and Jessie Asher on bass guitar, and with studio musician Kevin Frey on drums, JCQ has already achieved some measure of a following within Yeshiva.
"I make a point of being there for every concert they play," said one YC senior. Caplan appreciates the devoted following that his band has accumulated since its recent founding, noting, "the audiences we get at YU are really great, really supportive. It's really wonderful to see the students appreciating our music."
Caplan, who composes the group's songs, feels his music is the product of many different influences, explaining that, "growing up, [he] listened to everything, though [he] would say that [his] most significant influence is John Coltrane, both in terms of his musical approach and his ideas about music." While this significant influence often leads JCQ down the path that jazz has cleared, Caplan sees his music as something different from jazz. JCQ's music, as Caplan sees it, is meant to explore all different realms and categories of music in an effort to achieve its goals. Caplan explains, "what we're trying to do with our music is to play with a message and not get bogged down in the display of technical ability or skill."
The formation of JCQ indicates a significant stride for diverse influence at Yeshiva. All of the students in JCQ are in their first year at Yeshiva. Asher is a local, while Wexler is from Montreal, and Caplan is from Richmond, Virginia. Each has been a part of a unique music scene through childhood and adolescence, but they met through Yeshiva's Jazz Ensemble. Caplan met up with Frey through mutual acquaintances who had been Caplan's "old camp friends from Jersey." This diversity has led to a musical style that is really hard to pin down, and intentionally so. Says Caplan, "we wanted to create a group with a lot of open harmonies, where you could do a lot of experimentation inside of it, and make something really spiritual. We want to leave all doors open." One principle of the band, though, remains unshakable. Caplan sums the methodology up succinctly by emphasizing that their music is meant to engender "love for Torah, love for humanity, and the expression of the individual."
Certainly, if audience appreciation is any indication, JCQ is destined for no small measure of success, which Caplan sees as only a good thing. "We're trying to develop an intimate rapport, a close-knit community that surrounds the music," which, as that community grows larger, can "bring in additional forms of art that promote the artistic community." Again, always in the pursuit of, "love for Torah, love for humanity, and the expression of the individual."