Living the jazz fantasy
October 28, 2008
By Chantelle Lusebrink
High school musicians to play at renowned Seattle night club
The Liberty jazz band performs
Nearly 60 of Issaquah’s students will step into the spotlights of Dimitrou’s Jazz Alley in Seattle next week. The stage at Jazz Alley has seen some of the genre’s greatest musicians perform. People like Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and the Count Basie Orchestra have all left their mark since the club opened in 1979.
On Nov. 3, students from Issaquah, Liberty and Skyline high schools jazz bands will give a concert there, the first time the three bands will perform together.
“It is a great opportunity to play downtown,” said Phil Donley, the director of bands for Liberty. “It is a great venue, and is an opportunity for students to play in a professional environment and step it up a level.”
Donley helped coordinate the event with the club’s directors after he watched a show there, and he made sure each of the three bands received the opportunity to play.
“We believe that musicians, student musicians, are a big part of the tradition of jazz and we fully support nurturing the students,” Rob Perry, general manager for the club, said. “We not only hope that one, it helps them get an appreciation for how wonderful of an art form jazz is, but also for some of them, they are going to be doing it for their livelihood.”
“It is a fantastic learning experience for them,” David Pitt, the director of bands at Skyline, said. “To go to a club where the monsters of jazz have performed is really great for them.”
It’s the first time many of the students have set foot in a widely acclaimed professional venue.
“The most exciting part is that there are real people there,” said Liberty senior Andrew Nyte, “not just our parents or people that don’t want to be there. These are people that have seen real jazz shows before and enjoy them, and that makes me want to play better.”
It is a challenge the students have been working toward since the beginning of the school year.
“How often do students get to say they performed at a major club?” asked Patrick Holen, director of bands for Issaquah. “You never know who is going to be at that club watching.“Once the kids heard about playing at Jazz Alley, their whole work ethic changed dramatically. They knew they had to step up and they’ve done that.”
For many students, jazz band is more a hobby or elective, since they also play in their school’s more traditional symphonic, pep and marching bands or orchestras.
Other students do it for the love of learning different styles of music.
“It is a good opportunity to expand your horizons and play different things, or improvise and solo,” Issaquah senior Zach Perniola said.
Still others find it ties into everyday curriculum, like breaking down fractions, Skyline student James Nielsen said.
But most of all, they have fun with it and each other.
“I love playing jazz music,” said Jake Tacher, a senior jazz student at Issaquah. “It is a ton of fun to play with these people every day.”
Reach Reporter Chantelle Lusebrink at 392-6434, ext. 241, or clusebrink@isspress.com.
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