South Whidbey’s own will be represented at a festival featuring tomorrow’s top youth jazz performers.
The South Whidbey High School Jazz Ensemble will travel to the sunny skies of Monterey, Calif., in April to compete in the prestigious Next Generation Jazz Festival’s Big Band Division.
South Whidbey was one of 13 high school jazz bands in the country selected as finalists in its category. The festival is one of the most inclusive in the United States, with winners going on to perform in the Monterey Jazz Festival, the longest continuously running jazz festival in the world.
South Whidbey and Roosevelt High School Jazz Band II of Seattle will represent Washington, while the rest of the field comes from California and Nevada. The festival, held April 8-10, receives over 130 applications from bands every year. In order to be considered, bands must have a proven track record of success at the regional level. Because of South Whidbey’s success over the past two decades at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, held on the campus of the University of Idaho, the ensemble submitted recordings of three Duke Ellington songs, including “Magnolia’s Dripping with Molasses.”
South Whidbey is slated to open the competition by performing at 8:30 a.m. on April 9. A panel of adjudicators will judge the bands on their performances.
It’s the band’s first selection to the festival since 2009.
“It’s really exciting because we’re the first band in a long time to do this,” said senior trombone player Tesla Dussault. “In the past, we’ve had a really great band, so it’s nice to be able to say we accomplished something.”
Qualifying for the event brings its challenges, said Chris Harshman, the band’s longtime director. Harshman said the band will need to play much more challenging pieces than normal to distinguish itself from the other bands.
“We have to find a way to get that edge,” Harshman said. “That means we have to turn up the subtlety of our senses. We have to really, really go for fine-point now and distinguish all of the elements of our playing. Everything has to be in absolute control, which means you have to be able to play with unleashed power.”
The band will be the small kid on the block at the festival. A majority of the competing high schools have enrollments of around 2,000 or 3,000 students, with two or even three jazz bands to pull talent from, Harshman said. South Whidbey High School has an enrollment of about 450 students with only one jazz band. They’ve overcome similar odds before when the band won AA Division of the Clark County Jazz Festival on Jan. 29. South Whidbey is considered a Division A school.
“It feels like for a long time, we’ve been really good for a band from a school of our size,” Dussault said. “We just have to be really good and that’s another level. We’ve always been just below and maybe this will push us up.”
The band practices twice a day, once in the morning before school and again around 11 a.m. The festival has not been far from their minds during rehearsal.
“Everything we do in here is preparation for Monterey,” said Harshman, before the band’s rehearsal on Feb. 11.
Senior drums player Jason Li said practices have become more rigorous and Harshman is keeping a keen ear for how the band sounds.
“We kind of have to step it up to bands at that level and we have to try and reach the highest standard we can,” Li said. “He holds us to a high standard and we’ve learned to accept that.”
Harshman said the band being selected to the festival was a validation of their hard work and refusing to be intimidated by bigger schools.
“Usually we’re just scratching to get up to that level,” Harshman said. “I kind of say we dredge for talent. We got to dig deep and find it in ourselves and in each other. It’s all about pushing limitations aside and finding ways to get there. Part of it, I think being in a small community just builds up belief in one another.”
The band will have plenty of opportunities to reap the benefits of their hard-earned work. Dussault said she is looking forward to visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has an annual attendance of more than two million visitors.
“In nature documentaries, it’s kind of like the end-all-be-all of going and observing ocean life and so I’ve always been interested in that,” Dussault said. “I’m excited about that.”
When they’re not competing or taking in the sights and sounds of the area, the students will also learn tips and techniques in workshops led by professional musicians. Performances at the festival will be streamed online at www.montereyjazzfestival.org/NGJF/next-generation-jazz-festival-web-streams.
Community members can see the ensemble live tonight when they perform in the main auditorium at the school’s second annual Showcase Night, starting at 6 p.m.
They will also be performing at the Sweetheart Big Band Dance on Feb. 20 at the South Whidbey High School New Commons. The event is 7-9 p.m. and will include music, fancy desserts, punch, a raffle, door prizes and swing dancing. Tickets are $12 per person ($10 seniors) or $35 for families of four or more. Tickets are available at the door or from any jazz band student.
