The swing was the thing for an Okotoks high school jazz band.
The Holy Trinity Academy Grade 11 jazz band swung for the fences as they took home a gold distinction at the Alberta International Band Festival in Edmonton on March 14.
“For jazz bands, this is Game 7,” said saxophonist Camryn William. “Every band in Alberta will come to perform either there or in Calgary.”
The band performed Count Basie’s Hay Burner and Jerome Kern and Otto Harach’s Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.
Samantha Generoux nailed a flugelhorn solo for Smoke. A flugelhorn is a trumpet-like instrument, but with a richer, smokier sound compared to the trumpet.
“It has a nice smooth sound,” she said. “The trumpet has more of an aggressive sound – the flugelhorn has more round sound.”
She hit all the right notes, as did her band-mates as they turned in a performance that would have made The Platters swoon.
“This band really swings,” said HTA music instructor Tom Taylor. “Of all the things that impressed the adjudicators that was the thing. That is the hardest thing to teach a jazz band. They can play so many things well.”
When Taylor first heard the band, he knew they had something, but it wasn’t swing.
“This is the most improved band I have ever worked with,” Taylor said. “From where they started in September until now, is absolutely amazing.”
Taylor considered dismantling the Grade 11 Jazz Band in September, moving some of the students to the Grade 12 Jazz Band and having the rest join forces with the Grade 10s to form a massive junior jazz band.
“It was all them – they worked at it… I basically challenged them and they responded by proving me wrong,” Taylor said.
“They wanted a Grade 11 band – and they won,” Taylor said.
They went from being nearly split up to being among the elite in the province. The only other high school to hit the gold jazz standard was Edmonton’s Harry Ainley High School, which has an enrolment of more than 2,400 students.
“This is a Grade 11 jazz band — if you took our JV basketball team and they played a game against Harry Ainley, I don’t think I have to tell you what would happen,” Taylor said. “This band was on par with the best high school jazz bands from the biggest high schools in Alberta.”
Taylor, who has taught music for several schools in the area — from Cayley to Okotoks — came out of retirement this year to assist Martin Kennedy, another music instructor who has been around since the creation of Earth, Wind and Fire.
Taylor gives credit to the teachers before him.
He said St. John Paul II Collegiate Brianne Gruber and her predecessor, Paul Stelter, played significant roles in getting the students ready for the grind of high school music.
It is a grind, like in coffee grinds.
The award-winning jazz band not only puts in long-hours of practice, their HTA class-time is at 7:30 in the morning – a time that would definitely make Miles Davis kind of blue.
“There’s a simple reason for that – they couldn’t fit it into their timetables,” Taylor said.
It’s not great, but jazz can get the blood flowing.
“It’s tough getting here, but once you’re here it’s a good way to get the day going,” said saxophonist Quinn Heffron.
The band was working on a new genre last week as they were putting the pieces together for a jazzed up rendition of Guns N’ Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle for the Knight on the Town 1990s concert scheduled for May 13.
For a story on how the junior high school bands fared at the festival see the March 31 of the Western Wheel Weekend.
