Spring Arts Concert

Unfortunately I did not get video of the close of this concert last night - battery died - but what I did get was something to be pleased with. And the crowd appreciated our students' work. We also had two students debut a song they wrote as "make-up" for a missed jazz band performance in February. The tune was Latin jazz and they arranged it for a combo. That debut went very well:



Here Colton is the guitarist and Dylan is the trombone solo. Yes, that is me playing ham-handed piano. I am a bass trombonist by major.

A highlight of a night of highlights for me was the presentation of a scrap book from my chamber vocal ensemble, the Chorale on stage at the end of their performance. It was quite a surprise and an honor. The book contained pictures and memories of the recent Anaheim trip. I will always treasure that! It reminds me that teachers are rewarded in so many ways other than monetary. We know that our pay is nowhere close to what it should be, but if it were strictly about money there would be no teachers at all. We're there to shape the lives of young people!

Here are s few more video highlights just posted from last evening:





One of the many attributes of this senior class was their spirit of initiative. I have three senor singers who pushed very hard as freshmen to form a Soul band, specializing in Motown and other songs from from the 50's and 60's. These students would practice on their own time, since there was no class for this and assemble a repertoire of songs that they could sing with my jazz band's rhythm section. Rehearsals have been few and far between because I need the rhythm section during regular class time for music the band was working on.

However, I did find a way to assign sectionals on a few days a month for the horns and bring these girls in to practice. This year there has been very little time for that type practice so it has been a little hard. However, we did get together a couple of sessions to reprise these songs previous years. Wished there had been truly more time to polish, but as such, this went well:

SHS Jazz Band

Here's some video from this morning. This number is called Feet Bone, by Duke Ellington, Colton Kreuzer bass soloist and Dylan Carpenter, trombone.



This is Willow Weep For Me, Alto Saxophone solo is Karaleigh Miller.

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:

More Anaheim Heritage Festival Pictures

Here are a couple of stills from the the Heritage Festival from April 1 in Anaheim, CA. Kids were a blast to work with!

Eastern Arizona College Large Ensemble Festival

We are back from the 2011 Eastern Arizona College Large Ensemble Festival. I took my Mixed Chorus, a younger group of students who have generally not had much high school singing experience. These students work hard but don't take private lessons and need extra special coaching on good, consistent choral tone and sound quality.

I was going to reinforce their sound with some "ringers"; men from my advanced Chorale, the group that went to Anaheim two weeks ago. Unfortunately another big field trip from another department and some grades issues got in the way of that plan. I then scrapped all the planned music and changed it on Monday; these kids buckled down, learned new parts in two days and just sang so well today. These videos don't quite capture the sound they made as expressed by the three clinicians.

I knew that they would score a Good and maybe an Excellent. I didn't expect the Superior that came out of this performance, as determined by the judges. It was a great bus ride home afterward and such a lift for these great kids.

SHS Chorale at Heritage Music Festival - Music Video

Now that I have a chance, here are some viedeos from my Chorale's performance at the Heritage Festival in Anaheim on April 1. The sparse crown noise stems from the fact that we were the very first group of the day and there were no other performing groups in the audience. I posted the sound earlier, so now here is some video.

Gordon Goodwin's New Album

One of the joys in my professional life as a music educator is to see and hear vibrant pro musicians reaching out to younger generations. Gordon Goodwin is living up to that, bringing big band jazz music to life with his CD's, videos, arrangements and school appearances. His Big Phat Band are all superstar studio musicians who get together when they can to record Gordon's newest charts. That music is published and sold to schools at all levels, and is readily available.

I have done several of his charts with my band, and my kids absolutely love the music. We've also had the pleasure of having a clinic in person this spring with Eric Marienthal, his lead alto sax player. Eric is a great guy and had very insightful comments to help us along at the Chandler-Gilbert Community College Jazz Festival in February. We've put in our name into the the ring to have Mr. Goodwin come to our school next year and work with us. We'll see how that goes. Here's the latest video promoting that album. These guys truly do have fun!