- And now it is my distinct privilege to introduce the 2024 WSMA High School State Honor Jazz Ensemble and their distinguished conductor, Ms. Patty Darling.

[audience applauding] - Here we go.

[audience applauding] [Patty snapping] ["It's Glory"] [upbeat jazz music] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [audience applauding] Thank you, thank you.

Wow, okay, that was a great opener.

Welcome to the 2024 WSMA Honors Jazz Concert.

We're so excited to be sharing this music with you today.

It's been really fun.

It's been rewarding for us to work on this over camp and then come back together now and really get all the fine details together these last couple days.

And the progress that everybody made was incredible.

So the tune we just played is called "It's Glory."

It was written by Duke Ellington and arranged by Oliver Nelson for alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges.

And it's such a cool arrangement.

I love Duke Ellington's use of these really dissonant harmonies in the shout choruses.

That use of dissonance in his music is really one of the things in his compositions that set him apart totally from other jazz musicians of his time.

So I'd like to thank our soloists on this piece.

If you could just give us a wave, we'd love to recognize you.

That was Ashley Bradley on piano, Jonas Daso on trombone, Michael Severson on trumpet, Evan Noel on alto sax, and Nick Frane on trumpet.

How about a hand for them?

[audience applauding] Next up, we're gonna play a brand new chart by composer Annie Booth, and this is called "Sagebrush," and it's a wonderful piece.

It's a really great chart for getting your band to really internalize that triplet swing feel.

Annie Booth and Alan Baylock have founded a new publishing company called Brava Jazz Publishing, whose mission is to support and champion women jazz composers and arrangers, and to create a platform for their music to be published and distributed, and celebrating the accomplishments of women in jazz in the past and in the present is so important for inspiring future generations of all musicians, but especially women.

So it is a joy for us to play this piece for you today.

This will feature Svend Luke on Bass, Andrew Scott on alto sax, Alex Modesette on trumpet, and Jase Beekhuizen on tenor sax.

Here is "Sagebrush."

[gentle upbeat jazz music] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle upbeat jazz music continues] [audience applauding] We're gonna continue with a piece by the legendary composer Mary Lou Williams.

Mary Lou Williams was one of only a few jazz musicians to have success throughout all the different eras of jazz.

For example, swing and then to bebop.

She was always in demand, writing tons of charts for like Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and many others.

And it's because she was interested in staying current and contemporary and experimenting and adapting with new styles of music.

In the words of Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams is perpetually contemporary.

This piece called "Walkin' and Swingin'" was written in 1939 for Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy.

And the original orchestration calls for a few less performers.

But we are doubling a couple of parts because we want everyone to play on this tune.

So here's "Walkin' and Swingin'."

You're gonna hear Kai Binkowski on bari, Drake Wappler on tenor, Ashley on piano, and Jase Beekhuizen on tenor saxophone.

[Patty snapping] [upbeat jazz music] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [audience applauding] Could our soloists stand, please?

Why don't you stand up, give our soloists a round of applause on that piece, yeah.

[audience applauding] Nice.

This next piece is written by one of the greatest jazz educators and jazz composers that I know, Fred Sturm.

And many of you probably knew Fred or knew him or of course know his music.

He was a huge mentor and inspiration to me and everyone at Lawrence University, where he was the director of the Jazz Studies Department until he passed in 2014.

He has inspired and touched the lives of thousands and thousands of people.

And I can't tell you how grateful I am to have had the chance to study and teach with him.

So this is a beautiful, understated, reflective work of his called "A Hymn For Her."

We've expanded the solo section a little bit to make room for some more improvisation in the middle.

And you're gonna hear Kyler Katanik on vibraphone, Edward Jones III on trumpet, Jonas Daso on Trombone, and Kai Binkowski on bari sax.

Here is "A Hymn For Her."

[ensemble tuning] [gentle jazz music] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music continues] [audience applauding] All right, so.. All right, so this next piece is one of my newest compositions called "On The Wing," and it's dedicated to my dear friend and another great mentor of mine, Bob Curnow at Sierra Music Publishing.

This band did the premiere performance of this last summer at camp.

And to have your music played by such talented and sensitive musicians is a real gift.

So thank you, band.

This features Evan Noel on soprano saxophone and Conner Trahan on trombone.

And I think that's it, yeah, so here's "On the Wing."

[upbeat jazz music] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [gentle jazz music] [gentle jazz music continues] [audience applauding] Thank you.

Evan Noel and Conner Trahan at trombone and soprano sax, and also some great drumming by Trent Hendrickson, right?

Yeah, that was great.

It's a hard rhythm section part, and he nailed it.

Really, really love working with this rhythm section.

They're right on.

So before we play our last tune, I would like to extend a huge thank you again to this band.

It has been an absolute joy in working with them.

Could we give them another hand?

[audience applauding] Yeah, you guys have nailed it.

And a special thank you again to the parents.

But before we do that, I wanna have a couple other things I wanna say.

Yeah, I just, I'm getting a little teared up here, but there's one more little acknowledgement, and I wanna make sure I have this.

Yes, I know what it is.

I wanna introduce everybody in the band to you, everybody.

So I wanna just take a minute.

These students have all gone above and beyond in the process of getting this music ready.

And there's so much involved.

They just played that so beautifully it's like, so I'm getting a little choked up here.

But it's not just the notes they're learning, but their articulations and their dynamics and the structures of the tunes and the characteristics of the different styles and the improvisational structures, all while listening for balance and intonation.

And in big band music, every one of these parts is so individual and important, and we all need to be able to be responsible to prepare our parts, and also listen and come back together and adjust for intonation and just playing together.

And I tell you, this band knows how to do all of this.

So I wanted to thank them.

And I also wanna thank you parents for all of your encouragement and support because this could not happen without you.

So a hand for the parents.

[audience applauding] I'm gonna introduce everyone, I want everybody by section, we'll start with the saxes.

If you could just wave when I announce your name, I'm not sure what order we're in on this tune.

So starting with the saxes, we have Evan Noel on alto sax, Andrew Scott.

And if you could hold, yeah, hold, I'll do the saxes first.

And then Andrew Scott, Jase Beekhuizen, Drake Wappler, and Kai Binkowski, hand for them.

[audience applauding] And our trombones, Jonas Daso, Delaney Hoeper, Hoeper, sorry, Conner Trahan, and Tatum Diercks.

Hand for our trombones.

[audience applauding] Trumpets, so Nick Frane, Edward Jones III, Alex Modesette, Michael Severson, and Aaron Vetter on our trumpets.

[audience applauding] And our rhythm section, Piper Vetting on guitar, Ashley Bradley on piano, Svend Luke on bass, Trent Hendrickson, drums and percussion, and Kyler Katanik, drums and percussion.

If you could give them all a great big hand.

[audience applauding] I would also like to extend a huge thank you again to parents.

And also I don't wanna forget section coaches.

You've had so many great suggestions.

You've helped me, like, figure out where to go and what the schedule is and great musical advice for all these different elements that we're putting together.

So could you please stand up?

Joe Finnegan, rhythm section coach.

There he is, Joe.

And then Eric Posel, saxophone coach, and Dan Galaney, trumpets, I believe he's back there.

And then Katie Poole, our trombone coach.

Katie, yep, she's back there.

So Katie was also our jazz coordinator, and she took care of all of these details in putting this together.

She and I have been in contact over the summer and before this, so thank you, Katie.

Thank you coaches for everything; big hand for them.

[audience applauding] A very special thank you to WSMA and Tim Wurgler and all the staff for the honor of working with these amazing students.

This is really a fantastic opportunity for all of us.

So thank you for that; a hand.

[audience applauding] Normally we would end the tune or end the concert with like a really big closing tune, but this time, we're gonna do something a little bit different.

This piece is basically just like a couple sheets of paper.

It's a lead sheet with just melodies and chords for, like, the head of the tune.

That's it, and that's all the band gets.

And so it's written by Alan Ferber, it's called "Get Sassy," but the rest of the whole tune is improvised by the students.

So they're the ones creating the shape of the piece in between before we come back to the melody.

That means that they're not only playing all the time, but they're listening, they're listening to each other, and they're offering each other ideas and answering and leaving space.

So this is never the same every time we play it.

And it's also really fun and it's a great introduction to collective improvisation.

So you're gonna hear a little bit of Piper on guitar, our trombone section, Delaney and Conner, well, I just introduced them, so it's a lot of fun.

Yeah, we'll see how this goes; have fun with it.

So thank you.

All right, this is it.

[audience applauding] [suspenseful jazz music] [suspenseful jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [upbeat music jazz continues] [audience applauding] On three, one, two, three.

Them, you guys.

[audience continues applauding] Thank you.