Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble and Their Passion for Jazz
The Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble went to New York City for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival May 9 – 11, 2019.
Journal by Dr. Gregg Gelb, Director (The Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble is part of the Philharmonic Association, a Raleigh based non-profit organization.)
Day 1 – May 8
We all meet, 25 students and about 15 parents and 4 Chaperones, at RDU on Wed., May 8 about 4pm. Our flight is at 6:14 pm. We waited at our gate for the flight, snacking and talking.
The students are all excited. They look confident. WE leave RDU right on time.
So, how will they play? They are totally prepared. We have worked hard every Sunday for 2 to 3 hours: The students have also gotten together on their own to have sectionals own their own time. Throughout the year (From Sept 2018 to now) we have had extra help from a few clinicians. And before we perform in our competition round on Friday, we will still get more instruction from long-time Jazz at Lincoln Center trumpeter, Marcus Printup, plus all the inspiration and advice we will hear from Wynton Marsalis. The adrenaline rush from being in NYC and seeing the students from the other 15 ‘competing’ bands will also be a motivator that we haven’t had yet. We do want to finish first.
I believe our program is going to be great. I think we will dive right in to our first tune so I can be sure the first tempo is set when we walk out on stage and not waste anytime talking/introducing etc. (there is a 17 minute time limit for each bands performance). After the first tune I will say “We want to thank all of you who made this opportunity possible. Our first tune was Straw Boss by Benny Golson. It included a scat solo by Emma Gonzalez that is based off of the original piano solo that Bill Mays did on Benny Golson’s recording. Benny also wrote the next tune, Little Karen, and it was arranged by Quincy Jones. Our final tune will be Solid Old Man by Duke Ellington. Again thank all of you who gave their time and money to help get us here.”
We arrive in NYC and are at our hotel by about 10:30pm
Day 2 Thursday, May 9
8am breakfast with my students (there are four chaperones and I have four students under my watch but they are excellent and need little supervision the whole trip.)
10am rehearsal with Marcus Printup at Dizzy’s Jazz Club which is in JALC. We played great. We were a little ragged when we started with the rhythm. We just weren’t feeling the tempo yet. Marcus noticed a few little things to correct and then he shared his philosophy about Essentially Ellington. Then he mentioned he was a high school football player and I had to tell him I also had been. We talked about what got him into jazz. He was in both the high school football team and band but by the senior year he gave up football and concentrated on trumpet and jazz, which he had only gotten turned onto late in his high school years.
Then Lunch.
Then all 15 bands attended a short rehearsal in JALC’s Rose Hall by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which is directed by Wynton and is a fantastic group
Right after the rehearsal all 15 bands participated in a Question and Answer session with Wynton and the orchestra (JLCO). It’s an annual event with Wynton. It’s about 1 and half hours and every one I have seen has been very interesting because the students questions are good and Wynton’s answers are so full of great advice and wisdom. Students ask questions and any member of the orchestra responds. The questions are great. One was “What are the struggles of being a jazz musician?” Taylor Greenblatt of the JLCO answered, “It’s how a person handles struggles that really matters because we all have them.”
After this the band directors went to a special dinner with Wynton Marsalis and Todd Stoll, JALC Education Director. I got to sit right next to Wynton and by the end of dinner I really had a good conversation going with him. He talked about politics, race, culture and music and his insights and knowledge are amazing.
After that the students were playing a jazz jam session. Prior to coming to the festival each one of 15 directors selected 10 students to participate. Then they were all divided up into groups so no students from the same school/band were in the same jam session group. One of the playing members from JLCO was in charge of each song and played along with the student group. It was a great opportunity for the students to mix.
My son was there, (he lives and plays in NYC) we also met Paul Wells who is JALC’s current drummer. Paul is the one who got Chris to sub for him in the Vince Giordano orchestra and Chris has been the no 1 sub for Vince since that happened five years ago.
Day 3
TYJE meets at 9am in the hotel lobby. We have 2 hours to go explore the city, eat, etc., before going back to Lincoln Center for the competition
I and two of my students, Roland Burnot and Andrew Esch decided to take a walk through Central Park. It was a nice walk on a nice cool morning.
The competition is going to be intense. I haven’t heard the other bands but they have to be very good. Some are going to be playing Dizzy Gillespie’s Things to Come, which is one of the war horses (most challenging pieces) ever written for a big band.
All of the other schools are full-time band programs at regular high schools. Some are schools for the performing arts. TYJE is the only community band, meaning our students come from many different schools and only get together on Sundays. Still, I feel we can make it into the top three. There are prizes for the top three bands.
After a quick lunch, TYJE meets back in the lobby, all ready and dressed to go to JALC for the first competition round which starts at 2pm. We walk to Lincoln Center and arrive at 1 and start getting ready. But I have lots of family and friends there to meet so I get a chance to talk with them for a few minutes; my son Chris, wife Kathy, sister in law, Judy plus good old friends from my Roslyn (Long Island, NY) high school class who came to see me and support TYJE.
The competition starts and TYJE watches the first four bands play (all the bands watch the other bands play.) I am sitting with assistant band director Lisa Burn and both of us are getting nervous because the first four bands are very good.
During the fifth bands performance, TYJE is led into a warmup up room. We had a quick 20 minute warmup and we ran all three pieces and we sounded awesome. We get more coaching, cheering on from Marcus. Another player/teacher who has worked with us in the past year, Bryan Carter comes to listen and he feels our swing and starts happily dancing around to us. We have a great warmup. We are all set. Marcus thought we were all set. Everyone did.
Before going on stage at 4:30pm I had planned to pep up TYJE by saying “this is one of the biggest days in your life and you have a great chance of making it into the top three. Now go out there and give it all you’ve got! Don’t forget some final details we learned from Marcus Printup: Play with feeling, sing in your head what you are playing when you improvise. Focus on the rhythm section, your section and the whole ensemble.”
We are behind stage (I did not remember[GG1] to give them a pep talk) but I do make sure we all have the right tempo of the first tune.
We go out on stage and I don’t speak to the audience, I just count off the tune and Straw Boss begins very well. Basically it was a very good performance. But nerves may have effected some of the students because it don’t think we were as good as the warmup. Being on the stage, in front of all five judges, in front of all the other bands, and on Live video, well that had to be effecting us a little. It is not at all easy to be doing what we are doing. Plus the students tried as hard as they could to play their best and sometimes trying too hard is a way to make little mistakes. So some mistakes, not big ones, were made in the first tune. There were a lot of great things though; Very good balance, good tempo, and lots of variety. I arranged the piece to give solos to eight different students. That’s a lot in one tune. Plus I had transcribed the original piano solo from the recording and I turned it into a scat solo for our vocalist.
In the changeover to the next tune (which allows a different bassist and some different players to play) I briefly say thanks to everyone to helped get us here, and tell the audience the name of the tune, and credit the scat solo by Emma Gonzalez to our transcription of the piano solo by Bill Mays in the original recording and then introduce our last two tunes, Little Karen and Solid old man (Every band plays three tunes. The tunes have to come from the Essentially Ellington Library which consists of probably a hundred transcriptions of Ellington, Basie, Mary Lou Williams, Benny Carter, Benny Golson, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, and Chick Webb) One of the pieces has to come from the new year’s transcriptions and we choose two of the Benny Golson tunes from this year’s choice of eight transcriptions)
We then play Little Karen and Solid Old Man very well.
We go off stage and are led back into the hall to hear the rest of the performing bands in competition round one.
Afterwards we gather in the lobby and I get to see family and friends again.
We got a lot of compliments. My friends tell me we were best so far! I have my doubts though. I don’t think we did anything really special (except for maybe Emma’s scat) and in comparison to the two band’s that played Things to Come I feel our only chance is a third place finish. Plus, one of the bands that played Things to Come, also played Little Karen and their phrasing and dynamics were better than ours I thought. (it was Roosevelt HS from Seattle - they ended up be the first place winner). And there are seven more bands to go in the competition which continues on Saturday. I think our chances of making the top three are tough even though we have a very tight ensemble, very good soloists and a good swinging groove. We have foot tapping beat like we are playing for dancers and that is an important criteria. Every year Wynton says in his final comments that the most important criteria is to have a swinging rhythm section, and that the acoustic bass has to be at the heart of the band.
We did have some fine solos. Another challenge is that most everyone comes to JALC/EE with their music memorized. This is a daunting task but we have done it well the last four years. Only one band, a newcomer, did not have their music memorized this year.
We had good variety but except for the unique scat vocal we didn’t have anything earth shattering, like what Dillard HS from Florida and Roosevelt had. But let’s see how much of a difference that makes.
After the Friday competition we all went out to eat, and it was a lot of fun. Lisa Burn’s son Phillip Norris, who was a standout in our 2016 group, and now is performing with many of the best jazz musicians in NYC came out to join us. Then we all went back to Dizzy’s and listened to the Julliard Jazz Orchestra and they were excellent. It was an $81 bill though. Julliard played an all Ellington program and it was nice.
Day 4, Saturday, May 11
We listened to the other seven bands and lots of sensational things were played. We do have a problem of reaching the top three!
After the judges deliberate they come out at about 4:30 to announce the top three. Each judge talks about what criteria is most important to them. Wynton again stresses that it is the bass and rhythm section that is most important, but that also the special artistic touch that bands (and directors) bring to the music. I’m thinking we did all that.
But we don’t make it into the top three. It’s Roosevelt, Dillard and Foxboro HS from Massachusetts.
The selected three bands will now be treated to a special dinner and then get ready because they will each perform 2 pieces at the awards ceremony later that evening. Also JLCO will perform some of next year’s highlighted new pieces and many other awards will be given. TYJE goes back to the rooms and we go out to eat then back to JALC for the ceremony. I didnt notice any student being upset. We were rather proud of what we did I think.
It is a wonderful evening. Lots of awards are given and we are proud that we receive many:
TYJE won many awards:
Outstanding brass section
Outstanding trumpet section
Outstanding tenor saxophone, Roland Burnot
Outstanding bass, Will Hazlehurst
Honorable mention Alto Sax, Andrew Long
Honorable mention Trumpet, Emerson Borg
The scores and rankings arrived about two weeks later. We ended up in seventh place however, bands 4-8 were all within three points of each other so I look at it as if we were tied for fourth with 4 or 5 other bands)
A special moment for me is when Wynton invites all of the 15 band director’s on stage and he talks about how much respect he and the students have for all the work we do.
By about 10:30 it’s over and Wynton says none of us will get much sleep tonight. That ends up being totally true.
Day 5. Trip back to RDU. We leave the hotel at 5am for our 7am flight.
Still haven’t slept so I write my final thoughts on the plane
REFECTIONS:
What type of student is a TYJE member? They are hardworking, studious, driven to play jazz. Why Jazz? Sometimes they got they bug early in life by either watching someone play, or in my case I used to offer an improvisation class to beginners and now some of the students have risen to TYJE. There are a lot of opportunities for listening to, learning, and playing jazz in our area. There should be more though.
The students have supportive families who pay for lessons, get them to rehearsals, make sure they are doing their work. These students are individually driven. These students love playing music and they want to succeed at it. Most of the graduating seniors, about ten of them, are going to study music in college and try and make a career of it.
What would make a difference in adding our success?
Some of the competing bands get to NYC a day or two early, and do some performing at NYC clubs
Our band meets only once a week.
Our rhythm section comes from different schools and doesn’t play enough together.
We need help promoting our program and spreading the word. After 4 years of reaching the finals we are still relatively unappreciated and unknown in the Triangle and North Carolina. We are the only band that has ever made it from NC.
What does Wynton and EE accomplish the best? They create a jazz community that is diverse and representative of the whole country. All ages, sexes, colors come together because of their love and respect for jazz. We all end up having an even greater love for the music and appreciation of each other’s talents.
Student’s reflections:
Many said they got the most benefit by talking to so many students from schools around the country, and finding out how serious about jazz they were too. What they get from meeting the other students is a confirmation that they have many peers across the country who share the love and passion for jazz. Being in a big band in a combo and playing music that is rich in rhythm, melody, harmony, and tradition plus improvising, all drive these youth to want to excel at it.
May 29, 2019
Gregg Gelb
PS. Please feel free to add your own experience below and send back the entire journal to me so I can get everybody’s reflections on the one document.
[GG1]
The Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble went to New York City for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival May 9 – 11, 2019.
Journal by Dr. Gregg Gelb, Director (The Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble is part of the Philharmonic Association, a Raleigh based non-profit organization.)
Day 1 – May 8
We all meet, 25 students and about 15 parents and 4 Chaperones, at RDU on Wed., May 8 about 4pm. Our flight is at 6:14 pm. We waited at our gate for the flight, snacking and talking.
The students are all excited. They look confident. WE leave RDU right on time.
So, how will they play? They are totally prepared. We have worked hard every Sunday for 2 to 3 hours: The students have also gotten together on their own to have sectionals own their own time. Throughout the year (From Sept 2018 to now) we have had extra help from a few clinicians. And before we perform in our competition round on Friday, we will still get more instruction from long-time Jazz at Lincoln Center trumpeter, Marcus Printup, plus all the inspiration and advice we will hear from Wynton Marsalis. The adrenaline rush from being in NYC and seeing the students from the other 15 ‘competing’ bands will also be a motivator that we haven’t had yet. We do want to finish first.
I believe our program is going to be great. I think we will dive right in to our first tune so I can be sure the first tempo is set when we walk out on stage and not waste anytime talking/introducing etc. (there is a 17 minute time limit for each bands performance). After the first tune I will say “We want to thank all of you who made this opportunity possible. Our first tune was Straw Boss by Benny Golson. It included a scat solo by Emma Gonzalez that is based off of the original piano solo that Bill Mays did on Benny Golson’s recording. Benny also wrote the next tune, Little Karen, and it was arranged by Quincy Jones. Our final tune will be Solid Old Man by Duke Ellington. Again thank all of you who gave their time and money to help get us here.”
We arrive in NYC and are at our hotel by about 10:30pm
Day 2 Thursday, May 9
8am breakfast with my students (there are four chaperones and I have four students under my watch but they are excellent and need little supervision the whole trip.)
10am rehearsal with Marcus Printup at Dizzy’s Jazz Club which is in JALC. We played great. We were a little ragged when we started with the rhythm. We just weren’t feeling the tempo yet. Marcus noticed a few little things to correct and then he shared his philosophy about Essentially Ellington. Then he mentioned he was a high school football player and I had to tell him I also had been. We talked about what got him into jazz. He was in both the high school football team and band but by the senior year he gave up football and concentrated on trumpet and jazz, which he had only gotten turned onto late in his high school years.
Then Lunch.
Then all 15 bands attended a short rehearsal in JALC’s Rose Hall by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which is directed by Wynton and is a fantastic group
Right after the rehearsal all 15 bands participated in a Question and Answer session with Wynton and the orchestra (JLCO). It’s an annual event with Wynton. It’s about 1 and half hours and every one I have seen has been very interesting because the students questions are good and Wynton’s answers are so full of great advice and wisdom. Students ask questions and any member of the orchestra responds. The questions are great. One was “What are the struggles of being a jazz musician?” Taylor Greenblatt of the JLCO answered, “It’s how a person handles struggles that really matters because we all have them.”
After this the band directors went to a special dinner with Wynton Marsalis and Todd Stoll, JALC Education Director. I got to sit right next to Wynton and by the end of dinner I really had a good conversation going with him. He talked about politics, race, culture and music and his insights and knowledge are amazing.
After that the students were playing a jazz jam session. Prior to coming to the festival each one of 15 directors selected 10 students to participate. Then they were all divided up into groups so no students from the same school/band were in the same jam session group. One of the playing members from JLCO was in charge of each song and played along with the student group. It was a great opportunity for the students to mix.
My son was there, (he lives and plays in NYC) we also met Paul Wells who is JALC’s current drummer. Paul is the one who got Chris to sub for him in the Vince Giordano orchestra and Chris has been the no 1 sub for Vince since that happened five years ago.
Day 3
TYJE meets at 9am in the hotel lobby. We have 2 hours to go explore the city, eat, etc., before going back to Lincoln Center for the competition
I and two of my students, Roland Burnot and Andrew Esch decided to take a walk through Central Park. It was a nice walk on a nice cool morning.
The competition is going to be intense. I haven’t heard the other bands but they have to be very good. Some are going to be playing Dizzy Gillespie’s Things to Come, which is one of the war horses (most challenging pieces) ever written for a big band.
All of the other schools are full-time band programs at regular high schools. Some are schools for the performing arts. TYJE is the only community band, meaning our students come from many different schools and only get together on Sundays. Still, I feel we can make it into the top three. There are prizes for the top three bands.
After a quick lunch, TYJE meets back in the lobby, all ready and dressed to go to JALC for the first competition round which starts at 2pm. We walk to Lincoln Center and arrive at 1 and start getting ready. But I have lots of family and friends there to meet so I get a chance to talk with them for a few minutes; my son Chris, wife Kathy, sister in law, Judy plus good old friends from my Roslyn (Long Island, NY) high school class who came to see me and support TYJE.
The competition starts and TYJE watches the first four bands play (all the bands watch the other bands play.) I am sitting with assistant band director Lisa Burn and both of us are getting nervous because the first four bands are very good.
During the fifth bands performance, TYJE is led into a warmup up room. We had a quick 20 minute warmup and we ran all three pieces and we sounded awesome. We get more coaching, cheering on from Marcus. Another player/teacher who has worked with us in the past year, Bryan Carter comes to listen and he feels our swing and starts happily dancing around to us. We have a great warmup. We are all set. Marcus thought we were all set. Everyone did.
Before going on stage at 4:30pm I had planned to pep up TYJE by saying “this is one of the biggest days in your life and you have a great chance of making it into the top three. Now go out there and give it all you’ve got! Don’t forget some final details we learned from Marcus Printup: Play with feeling, sing in your head what you are playing when you improvise. Focus on the rhythm section, your section and the whole ensemble.”
We are behind stage (I did not remember[GG1] to give them a pep talk) but I do make sure we all have the right tempo of the first tune.
We go out on stage and I don’t speak to the audience, I just count off the tune and Straw Boss begins very well. Basically it was a very good performance. But nerves may have effected some of the students because it don’t think we were as good as the warmup. Being on the stage, in front of all five judges, in front of all the other bands, and on Live video, well that had to be effecting us a little. It is not at all easy to be doing what we are doing. Plus the students tried as hard as they could to play their best and sometimes trying too hard is a way to make little mistakes. So some mistakes, not big ones, were made in the first tune. There were a lot of great things though; Very good balance, good tempo, and lots of variety. I arranged the piece to give solos to eight different students. That’s a lot in one tune. Plus I had transcribed the original piano solo from the recording and I turned it into a scat solo for our vocalist.
In the changeover to the next tune (which allows a different bassist and some different players to play) I briefly say thanks to everyone to helped get us here, and tell the audience the name of the tune, and credit the scat solo by Emma Gonzalez to our transcription of the piano solo by Bill Mays in the original recording and then introduce our last two tunes, Little Karen and Solid old man (Every band plays three tunes. The tunes have to come from the Essentially Ellington Library which consists of probably a hundred transcriptions of Ellington, Basie, Mary Lou Williams, Benny Carter, Benny Golson, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, and Chick Webb) One of the pieces has to come from the new year’s transcriptions and we choose two of the Benny Golson tunes from this year’s choice of eight transcriptions)
We then play Little Karen and Solid Old Man very well.
We go off stage and are led back into the hall to hear the rest of the performing bands in competition round one.
Afterwards we gather in the lobby and I get to see family and friends again.
We got a lot of compliments. My friends tell me we were best so far! I have my doubts though. I don’t think we did anything really special (except for maybe Emma’s scat) and in comparison to the two band’s that played Things to Come I feel our only chance is a third place finish. Plus, one of the bands that played Things to Come, also played Little Karen and their phrasing and dynamics were better than ours I thought. (it was Roosevelt HS from Seattle - they ended up be the first place winner). And there are seven more bands to go in the competition which continues on Saturday. I think our chances of making the top three are tough even though we have a very tight ensemble, very good soloists and a good swinging groove. We have foot tapping beat like we are playing for dancers and that is an important criteria. Every year Wynton says in his final comments that the most important criteria is to have a swinging rhythm section, and that the acoustic bass has to be at the heart of the band.
We did have some fine solos. Another challenge is that most everyone comes to JALC/EE with their music memorized. This is a daunting task but we have done it well the last four years. Only one band, a newcomer, did not have their music memorized this year.
We had good variety but except for the unique scat vocal we didn’t have anything earth shattering, like what Dillard HS from Florida and Roosevelt had. But let’s see how much of a difference that makes.
After the Friday competition we all went out to eat, and it was a lot of fun. Lisa Burn’s son Phillip Norris, who was a standout in our 2016 group, and now is performing with many of the best jazz musicians in NYC came out to join us. Then we all went back to Dizzy’s and listened to the Julliard Jazz Orchestra and they were excellent. It was an $81 bill though. Julliard played an all Ellington program and it was nice.
Day 4, Saturday, May 11
We listened to the other seven bands and lots of sensational things were played. We do have a problem of reaching the top three!
After the judges deliberate they come out at about 4:30 to announce the top three. Each judge talks about what criteria is most important to them. Wynton again stresses that it is the bass and rhythm section that is most important, but that also the special artistic touch that bands (and directors) bring to the music. I’m thinking we did all that.
But we don’t make it into the top three. It’s Roosevelt, Dillard and Foxboro HS from Massachusetts.
The selected three bands will now be treated to a special dinner and then get ready because they will each perform 2 pieces at the awards ceremony later that evening. Also JLCO will perform some of next year’s highlighted new pieces and many other awards will be given. TYJE goes back to the rooms and we go out to eat then back to JALC for the ceremony. I didnt notice any student being upset. We were rather proud of what we did I think.
It is a wonderful evening. Lots of awards are given and we are proud that we receive many:
TYJE won many awards:
Outstanding brass section
Outstanding trumpet section
Outstanding tenor saxophone, Roland Burnot
Outstanding bass, Will Hazlehurst
Honorable mention Alto Sax, Andrew Long
Honorable mention Trumpet, Emerson Borg
The scores and rankings arrived about two weeks later. We ended up in seventh place however, bands 4-8 were all within three points of each other so I look at it as if we were tied for fourth with 4 or 5 other bands)
A special moment for me is when Wynton invites all of the 15 band director’s on stage and he talks about how much respect he and the students have for all the work we do.
By about 10:30 it’s over and Wynton says none of us will get much sleep tonight. That ends up being totally true.
Day 5. Trip back to RDU. We leave the hotel at 5am for our 7am flight.
Still haven’t slept so I write my final thoughts on the plane
REFECTIONS:
What type of student is a TYJE member? They are hardworking, studious, driven to play jazz. Why Jazz? Sometimes they got they bug early in life by either watching someone play, or in my case I used to offer an improvisation class to beginners and now some of the students have risen to TYJE. There are a lot of opportunities for listening to, learning, and playing jazz in our area. There should be more though.
The students have supportive families who pay for lessons, get them to rehearsals, make sure they are doing their work. These students are individually driven. These students love playing music and they want to succeed at it. Most of the graduating seniors, about ten of them, are going to study music in college and try and make a career of it.
What would make a difference in adding our success?
Some of the competing bands get to NYC a day or two early, and do some performing at NYC clubs
Our band meets only once a week.
Our rhythm section comes from different schools and doesn’t play enough together.
We need help promoting our program and spreading the word. After 4 years of reaching the finals we are still relatively unappreciated and unknown in the Triangle and North Carolina. We are the only band that has ever made it from NC.
What does Wynton and EE accomplish the best? They create a jazz community that is diverse and representative of the whole country. All ages, sexes, colors come together because of their love and respect for jazz. We all end up having an even greater love for the music and appreciation of each other’s talents.
Student’s reflections:
Many said they got the most benefit by talking to so many students from schools around the country, and finding out how serious about jazz they were too. What they get from meeting the other students is a confirmation that they have many peers across the country who share the love and passion for jazz. Being in a big band in a combo and playing music that is rich in rhythm, melody, harmony, and tradition plus improvising, all drive these youth to want to excel at it.
May 29, 2019
Gregg Gelb
PS. Please feel free to add your own experience below and send back the entire journal to me so I can get everybody’s reflections on the one document.
[GG1]