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!

Filled Rolled Bread

This is my all time favorite pizza recipe, a filled rolled bread! Yes there a re a lot of steps, but really the toughest part is making the dough. And if you are squeamish about that there is ready-made dough (boo!) that you can buy in the grocery story to shorten the time this takes to make. I like to make my own dough because I know exactly what I have put in it. I owe this to The Frugal Gourmet, Mr. Jeff Smith, whom Linda and I loved watching on PBS oh so long ago on WTTW channel 11 in Chicago. I like to think he taught us how to cook.

THE DOUGH
1 package fast-rising dry yeast
1 cup tepid water
2 tsp of sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
¼ c salad oil
½ tsp salt
2 ¾ c unbleached flour

THE FILLING
1/3 pound Italian sausage or mild, casing removed
2 tbsp oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium yellow onion, slice into ¼ in strips
1 large red bell pepper, cored and sliced in 1/4 in strips
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 ¾ c canned plum tomatoes, crushed with juice
1 tsp dried oregano
(Optional) 1/3 lb wine cured hard salami, sliced 1/8 inch thick and chopped
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1/3 freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Pinch red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
Egg white wash

Directions: dissolve the yeast in a mixing bowl with the tepid water. Add the sugar, olive oil, salad oil, and salt. Mix in 1 ½ cups of the flour and whip until the batter has formed and begins to pull away from the side of the bowl, about 10 minutes. Stir in the remaining flour and kneed until a smooth dough is achieved. Allow the dough to rise twice right in the bowl and punch down after each rising.

Heat a large frying pan and brown the sausage until crumbly. Remove and drain the excess fat and discard. Set the cooked sausage aside on a paper towel covered plate. Heat the frying pan again and add the oil, garlic, onion, and bell pepper. Sauté for 5 minutes and add the parsley, crushed tomatoes, cooked sausage, and oregano. Simmer for 20 minutes more until all is tender, thickened, and some of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the remaining ingredients for the filling and allow to cool completely.

Press the dough out into an 18 X 13-inch lightly oiled nonstick sheet pan. Spread half the cooled filling lengthwise down the center of the pan of pressed-out dough. Sprinkle on some of the cheeses. Fold one layer of dough over the filling. Spread another layer over the top of the fold and sprinkle remaining cheeses on. Fold over remaining dough layer. Pinch ends to keep juices in and poke holes in top with a fork and brush egg whites over the roll.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool until warm. Slice and serve.