Certificate Recital: Rohit Oomman, Jazz Guitar

Over the past few years, I’ve gotten the chance to see a number of trios live— both on campus and in New York City—led by either a guitarist or pianist and accompanied by bass and drums. It’s stunning to see the amount of freedom one can take advantage of in this setting while still remaining strongly tethered to a body of established repertoire—in turn, striving towards this balance has ultimately been the foundation of my vision for tonight’s set.

I saw this recital as an opportunity to explore a format I’m extremely partial towards but don’t find myself putting together all that often—the guitar trio. As opposed to a larger and more arranged group, a sparse ensemble with a chordal instrument at the center allows for far more improvisatory freedom on the part of all of its musicians. To take full advantage of this trio setting, the arrangements I’ve chosen to play tonight have quite a lot of blank space, and a great deal of this music’s interpretation is left up to us in the moment.

I am very lucky to share the stage tonight with two exceptionally talented musicians who I met here at Princeton—drummer Alex MacArthur and bassist Max Vinetz—and are more than up to the task. All three of us join you tonight with freedom and spontaneity as our ultimate ideals, and look forward to expressing them over the course of the performance, aided in no small part by your presence.

With that, I truly thank you all for coming to hear us perform. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we’ve all enjoyed putting this set together! None of us have heard the show you’ve come to hear tonight. As such, I have no way of goading your attention towards the triumphs of the hour or defending our inevitable gaffes. I have no idea what those will be and what they’ll sound like. But that’s what makes this fun. I would like to extend my special thanks to all of the jazz and improvisation teachers I have had here at Princeton—Rudresh Mahanthappa, Miles Okazaki, Darcy James Argue, Ted Chubb, Matt Parrish, Dmitri Tymoczko, and Matthew Clayton. It feels necessary that I extend my most profound gratitude to you all for shaping me into a better musician and a better person.

Rohit Oomman ‘24 is a guitarist from Brooklyn, NY. He is a senior in the Economics department and has performed with Michael League, Wyclef Gordon and Wynton Marsalis. In the jazz program on campus, he is involved with Small Group I and the Creative Large Ensemble. His passion for jazz guitar greatly informs his outside musical pursuits as an avid producer and DJ—a development throughout which members of Princeton’s music faculty have provided a large degree of support and insight.

Alex MacArthur ‘25 is a drummer and trumpeter from Boston, MA, majoring in history and pursuing certificates in French Language and Culture and European Cultural Studies. He has performed in a wide array of events and competitions, ranging from the Panama Jazz Festival to the Mingus Competition. At Princeton, he studies jazz drums under Vincent Ector, plays in multiple bands, and is Co-Chair of Princeton University Concerts’ Student Ambassador program.

Max Vinetz ‘GS is a composer and bassist based in Princeton, New Jersey, currently pursuing a PhD in Music Composition as a Naumburg Doctoral Fellow. He loves baking and eating all things sourdough-related, and is usually playing with one of his two cats or collecting vintage furniture.