All that jazz
Upper and middle school jazz groups shared the stage for the annual Evening of Jazz concert on April 10 in the Patil Theater, the final jazz concert of the school year, showcasing the bands’ work throughout the year and celebrating seniors.
Upper school Lab Band, a smaller introductory class for frosh and beginning instrumentalists, began the concert with a high-energy rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” a song from the 2014 movie “Whiplash.” The four saxophonists, Aydin Mesic (10), Arjun Khara (10), Aditya Gupta (9) and Matthew Gu (9), performed improvised solos based on a base melody for all three songs.
After two more upbeat pieces by Lab Band, middle school Jazz Band took the stage with Lee Morgan’s “Cornbread,” which featured solos from all saxophonists. Audience member Audrey Yang (12) appreciated these moments of musical improvisation.
“I really enjoyed the beats and tempos of the music, and I especially enjoyed that every song had solos,” Audrey said. “Each piece is really unique, and I can see the dedication that’s been put into making the improvisation sound so good.”
Jazz band director David Hart emphasized that he always pushes students to experiment and improvise during class, a skill he especially admires among this year’s senior musicians.
“We learn tunes by ear, and those are the blueprint for having a good improvisation,” Dr. Hart said. “The more tunes they know, the better they’ll be at improvising. By their senior year, it’s my hope that they’ve learned so many tunes that they have an understanding of where notes like to go and the feel of a song to improvise on it. That translates to what you heard from the seniors today.”
The upper school Jazz Band, an audition-based ensemble, played several more of Ellington’s most famous songs, including “Take the A-Train,” an upbeat, swing-era piece that prominently features the buzzy sound of a Harmon-muted trumpet.
Afterwards the group shifted to modern jazz in the form of two video-game pieces, the first of which was “Chocobo Theme” by Nobuo Uematsu. The song featured senior Yash Sachdeva on an intense electric guitar solo using distortion, as well as senior Jayden Rodriguez’s fast-paced drum solo.
“I liked [Chocobo] a lot, especially this concert, because of the open drum solo in the beginning,” saxophonist and clarinetist Michael Petrov (10) said.“It’s been an awesome song to play in the second semester, and it’s really come together. I think everyone likes the hype of that song — it’s fun to play and fun to listen to as well.”
