The lights shined brightly on Juan Miguel Adam’s brass baritone saxophone. Chatter quickly faded as he approached the microphone to give a brief opening statement.

The Juan Miguel quartet, composed of juniors pianist Roman Farley, bassist Ryan Kari, drummer Howard Huelster, and saxophonist Juan Miguel Adams performed at MetroNOME Brewery in downtown Saint Paul on Saturday night. For the first time on stage, they performed with singer Georgia Ross, a senior who will likely join the quartet in future performances.

The quartet was created about a year ago, and was thought up by Adams. “Juan came up to me before a biology class, rubbing his hands together, and I knew he knew he had something cooking up,” Farley said. “He was like, ‘I have an idea. We gotta get a band together.’ And I was like, ‘that’s perfect. I know exactly who could be in this.’”

Ross first proposed working with the quartet last year, but didn’t begin practicing with them until September. Now, the newly formed quintet practices once every one or two weeks at the Farley’s house. “[Adding Ross] definitely changed a lot of what we played. With a singer, you have to play for the singer rather than play for the rest of the group,” Farley said. “There’s just more of a structure to how you can interact with the singer than when you’re just playing with other instruments and have more freedom over what you’re able to do with the song.”

The performance, their third at MetroNOME Brewery, was broken down into two sets, each lasting about 40 minutes and separated by a 20-minute intermission. The first song of each set was performed by the quartet alone, before Ross joined the group for the remainder.

A jazz quartet, their song choices were all jazz pieces, many of them well-known classics like “The Girl From Ipanema” and “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. Although the mood varied slightly, the setlist was primarily upbeat, but with a slower pacing. Still, some songs were very slow and more emotional, while others were faster and more snappy.

Each song lasted several minutes and consisted of many solos by Farley on the piano, Kari on bass, and especially Ross on vocals and Adams on saxophone. Positioned closest to the audience, Ross and Adams had the most solos. Ross had a great voice that fit well with jazz, and Adams had an impressive range of pitch, often playing tricky combinations of notes for an attention-grabbing effect.

“I think the lack of structure in jazz music makes it easy to do your own thing. You’re kind of creating on the spot, and interacting with the other players, and that’s a fun experience,” Kari said.

Although they said they found the performance a bit nerve-wracking, it didn’t show, especially once they started and got into the flow of the music. “At least for being on the drums, when we started playing on Saturday, we started with Nardis, which was kind of an easy song for me,” Huelster said. “It was easier for me to just start out simple and then work my way up to more complex things.”

Overall, the performance was fantastic. Ross’s amazing vocal talents coupled with the jazz quartet offered a low-key and enjoyable experience. It was quite refreshing to sit down for a few hours and listen to jazz, a genre many would say is increasingly lost upon the younger generations. From the standards created by this performance, anyone who hasn’t experienced live jazz is missing out.

The atmosphere of the performance at MetroNOME, located in a small brick room in the basement of the bar and restaurant, helped heighten the vibes, offering a vintage live jazz experience and a wide selection of beers for guests over 21. In addition to beer, MetroNOME is also known for its live music, specifically with young, upcoming artists, and offers many similar opportunities for those with interest.

The quartet probably won’t perform at MetroNOME again, though. “They cancelled on us several times. This past show was a long time in the making. This might be a departure from [them],” Farley said.

The Juan Miguel Quartet will likely perform with Georgia Ross again in the future, but they are still working on arranging new opportunities at new places.