Arizona State Jazz Festival

My jazz band will be performing tomorrow morning at Willow Canyon High School in Surprise, Arizona. Thia is the second straight year that we have made this festival, after a long drought. It's also an honor to represent not only our high school and district, but indeed much of Southern Arizona. The schools to our south did not qualify, and only 5 Tucson high schools, including us, will be performing over the next three days.

Most of the schools are from Maricopa county, with a smattering from outlying areas. The festival will run 9-5 for three days and adjudication will be against state standards, not a ranking from band to band. Ratings will be Superior (I) to Poor (V).

I know our students are geeked and will respond accordingly. We have worked hard to put this together and I think will be okay. Our bans is playing a new funk chart, Flew The Coop, plus a saxophone solo feature in a bluesy arrangement of Willow Weep for Me. We'll conclude our program with Duke Ellington's FeetBone.

I'll have still pictures and hopefully video to update with tomorrow. Should be fun!

----Update----

The band scored a II (Excellent) for its performance this morning. It was a good performance but not Superior quality. I just felt we didn't have much energy today; but of course we drove up 3 hours and went right into the warm-up room. Kids were partially asleep I think. Still it was a very good effort to be proud of. And it was special because there were several seniors who were making their last festival with me; always bittersweet. Here are some stills from this morning: