Blue and purple lights illuminated the Carson Soundstage Monday night as the USC Thornton Vocal Jazz Ensemble performed for a sizable crowd of family and friends. The intimate venue was a perfect setting for the performances, allowing the audience to closely connect with the performers.

Monday’s show was the tenth performance of thirteen total for the semester, said Larry Alvarez, a production coordinator at the Thornton School of Music. Each student group was assigned one performance at the beginning of the semester, so Monday was the first time the two groups performed at Carson this semester.

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Guest performer jazz band YOCOYA, which released an album in November named “Tierra Y Alma,” started the show at 7 p.m. The band is a five-piece with string, percussion and bass instruments. The only saxophone player was Kosta Kutay, a graduate student studying jazz studies. At the start of the show, YOCOYA performed three songs uninterrupted before Kutay spoke to the audience, naming the songs.

“Since it was my recital, I was handling all of the band leading … I was holding that responsibility,” Kutay said. “For other shows, around town … Angelo [Velasquez], the drummer, does it primarily, as he’s the person who started the band.”

YOCOYA had members of the band arrange songs, with Kutay, pianist Josh Wong and drummer Angelo Velasquez arranging one song each. Whoever arranged the song also had a solo during it, which Kutay said was not necessarily common.

Before playing the band’s last song, Kutay spoke to the audience about how glad he was to be among family, friends and people he loved. He elaborated on this after the performance, saying he chose to perform at Carson over other venues “to be close to friends and family.”

The audience also felt that energy, clapping after each song was finished from both of the groups and calling out to whoever they knew on stage.

The night ended with a performance from the USC Thornton Vocal Jazz Ensemble, formerly known as the USC the USC CreSCSCendo Vocal Jazz Ensemble Vocal Jazz Ensemble.

Hannah Norman, a freshman majoring in jazz studies and a member of the group since the fall semester, discussed how they’ve been preparing for the concert since the beginning of the semester.

“We got the songs as soon as possible and then every rehearsal we would just spend our two hours going through them,” Norman said. “I was feeling a little nervous, but also excited because I enjoy performing.”

The group performed six songs, half of them featuring arrangements by members of the ensemble, much like YOCOYA’s set. Cameron Davidson, a junior majoring in jazz studies who had a trumpet solo during a song of the performance, arranged “The Days of Wine and Roses” by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer.

“I decided to arrange [a month ago] because it didn’t look like we were going to have enough songs for the concert,” Davidson said. “It’s a very poignant little song, and it has a lot of meaning and simple lyrics.”

Other songs adapted by students in the ensemble include “You’ve Changed,” originally by Carl Fischer and Bill Carey and scored by Leo Mermelstein — a sophomore majoring in cognitive science as well as jazz studies — and “Linger” by The Cranberries, arranged by Margo Neuberger — a senior majoring in jazz studies.

Davidson also discussed his own personal experience arranging a song for the concert — while it wasn’t his first time arranging a song, it brought up the same emotions it always does.

“Coming up with all these different melodies is like improvising, but you improvise in the moment,” Davidson said.

Norman also emphasized the importance of the songs that they were singing.

“I really want [the audience] to really understand that the words that we’re saying have a message,” Norman said. “Always, whenever we’re performing, we have a message with the audience to feel through our songs and lyrics and tone.”