Region Band, with a Jazz Solo!

Wow... thinking back, I've just realized the magnitude of all that has occurred this past week and a half. I haven't really been able to just spend as much time playing around and experimenting with jazz as I would like, since the epic combination of school, missing school, and well... more school has simply been eating up so much time. Last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I attended the 2013 PMEA Region 6 Band Festival, and to say that I enjoyed it is quite an understatement. Those few days were probably, if not, the most enjoyable days of my school year thus far. Aside from having a wonderful guest conductor, playing in the region band was really a wake-up call and reminder of why I even love music in the first place - it's as true as human emotion and human connection can become.

Ok, I get it, that last comment was some pretty serious corn. But I love music.

At the festival, I met so many people who had similar interests and passions as I did, and for me to be able to share such interests was really phenomenal, considering that I rarely have the opportunity or chance to connect with people in such a way at Wissahickon. We performed a fantastic repertoire, and there were a few pieces, such as "Lux Aurumque" by Eric Whitacre, that were absolutely beautiful and heart-wrenching. The band even played an arrangement of excerpts from the Finale of Mahler's 3rd Symphony (I HIGHLY recommend you listen to the original orchestral score - although you might want to have a tissue box nearby), and I witnessed an emotional power of the symphonic band that I had never heard before. 

But most of all, what I realized about the entire process of rehearsing, practicing, and trying out the music was that it was simply just a lot of FUN. One of the pieces that we performed was "Metroplex - Three Postcards from Manhattan" by Robert Sheldon, and in particular, there's a really bluesy, jazzy section in the piece that features an alto saxophone solo. Though I currently don't have the recording of myself playing the solo during the concert, I've posted below the youtube link (sorry to those in school) of last year's District Band playing the same piece. The jazzy section starts at 1:20, and although you won't hear me playing, you WILL hear my brother playing the same exact solo I played recently, as Charlie was first chair alto sax last year. 

Finally touching base with jazz in an ensemble again after two years (I did trod a little bit in jazz band in the middle school) was a refreshing and almost novel experience. It was actually really funny, because the first time I played the solo in rehearsal, I was so conserved and way too "proper" in my interpretation. There simply wasn't enough "jazz", and in the words of the guest conductor, I was playing "very nice, but" needed "MORE." So when the second time to play to solo came up, I thought about what I needed to change. I opened up my throat, air, and sound, and improvised around what was written on the music in front of me. And the difference was awesome; I could just imagine myself as a hired sax playing in some sort of old, grungy, and smoky bar. 

And so while, yes, I did miss a few days of school and opportunity to practice for this project because of region band, I'm really quite okay with it. My solo in "Metroplex" was in all truthfulness a really cool and helpful experience to have. With an entire ensemble playing behind me, the jazz mode of playing really just "clicked" for the first time. Now that I'm back home, practicing in solitude once more, I find myself missing the interactive and social aspects of an ensemble, and I find myself hungry simply for more jazz. 

That jazz-related part of me that I've kept untouched for almost three years now is really being reignited with this project. 

And I'll be honest: in spite of all the conflicts that I have with our school's band program, a part of me really wants to play in a jazz band again. Man, jazz is just so cool.