American River College Instrumental Jazz Band held a concert at the ARC Main Theater on Oct. 27 called, “A Tribute to The Beatles.” The concert was engaging and entertaining to watch, any jazz fan would love it and even anyone not familiar with jazz would be impressed.

The show included special guests River City High School Big Band and the Sacramento Youth Band -Tower Bridge Band for the opening acts.

Dyne Eifertson, director of the ARC Instrumental Jazz Band, led the band as their setlist consisted of six songs “Kansas City,” “ A Hard Day’s Night,” “Penny Lane,” “Come Together,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “Hey Jude.”

The Beatles Tribute with the jazz spin was amazing and fun to watch. I don’t listen to jazz in my free time but their renditions of “Come Together,” and “Hey Jude,” were my favorites. The wind instruments filling in for the vocals were beautiful and if you are familiar with The Beatles’ catalog they made it easy to follow along with the songs.

For anyone wondering, no the crowd didn’t sing along to, “Hey Jude,” but it was encouraged by Eifertson as he introduced the song before it was played.

All songs that were performed by the ARC Jazz Band were composed by Latin composer Chico O’ Farrill and Grammy Award-winning Composer Bob Florence.

The Sacramento Youth’s Band-Tower Bridge Band, with directors, Justin Au and Parker Weis,  and the River City Big Band, with director Rudy Cisneros, put on entertaining performances. 

As someone who isn’t familiar with jazz it was engaging and I was impressed by the opening acts as their hard work came out in their performances.

In a special moment at the end of the show before the last song, Eifertson took time to praise and shine the spotlight on not only the band members but also the parents. 

“Keep the kids in [a] band, keep them in music, it’s a lifelong pursuit. Even if they don’t keep going with it, it is going to enrich everything they do in their lives.” Eifertson said.