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It's a Saturday in May and borderline hot in spite of the relentless onshore breeze. 500 or so teenagers, all with music instruments, some of them held weapon-like are gathered under the shade trees on the campus of Coronado High School.
Welcome to JazzFest 2012.
Tara Noonan is the Festival coordinator. She says the JazzFest has been going on for 15 years. There is judging, she says, and competition, but no cash prizes. From the rules and regulations:
Each group will be limited to three selections, preferably of diverse styles. Total performance time will be 15-17 minutes. The remainder of your half hour will be spent in clinic receiving immediate, direct feedback from one or more of your adjudicators. You will also receive written and taped comments. The JazzFest entry fee of $275 includes the lunchtime concert.
For an additional fee of $225, a limited number of bands will have the opportunity to participate in the Salt & Pepper clinic with Bill Yeager, the nationally renowned jazz educator from San Diego State University.
"We're sold out this year, which doesn't usually happen." She says that 33 high school, community college, and college jazz ensembles are here today. A campus music program fundraiser? "No. The JazzFest covers its own expenses, and that's about all."
At 18, Daniel Shaughnessy is a senior. High school is in his rearview mirrors. He grew up on Coronado. Improbably, he wears a Caltrans-orange sweat shirt over the de rigueur black uniform of the Coronado High School jazz ensemble. He's a big kid, linebacker size. His knowledge of jazz sax is more sophisticated than I expected.
"I'm using the obligatory (he says the word obligatory with a shade of sarcasm) Otto Link mouthpiece." But rather than the hard-edged, bright and loud tone I've come to expect from such metal mouth pieces, Shaughnessy blows warm up tones that are round and full and dark and reedy.
"My dad says I have the exact same setup at Stan Getz."
How did he land up in jazz studies, as opposed to, say, an indie rock band? "I heard jazz and thought it was cool. What styles to I like? Blues, Sambas, and Bossas because of the complex range of emotions."
Shaughnessy began on alto sax in the sixth grade in band class, not an unusual scenario in the school districts that still have band classes. By eighth grade he was marching in the band of a military academy, hefting a much larger baritone sax. Tenor, he says, is now his main horn although he owns one of each: soprano, alto, tenor, and a bari.
"My alto is silver. It was made in 1929 in Elkhart." He practices two hours a day, he says. His tenor, a vintage Selmer MK VI, even though re-lacquered is possibly worth more than the book value of my Jeep.
He asks me if I want to trade and for a minute, I actually consider it.
Jazz as a future, or, as an avocation? The latter. Shaughnessy will attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the fall to study engineering.
"The music industry? It's not so good right now."
He also performs in the Generation Jazz Band, a local volunteer jazz big band, and in a quartet named after a Galapagos tortoise: "Lonesome George." One of his George mates is teen drummer Nick Velez.
"I started on piano at five," he says. "I transitioned to drums in the third grade. And accordion," he says. "It's such a chick magnet."
They go on about the accordion being a date magnet and such until I realize they are goofing me, the old guy writing down everything they are saying. Velez wants to play in an indie rock band some day. In the fall, he's off to UCLA to study music in earnest. He hopes to earn a degree in jazz studies. "Jazz is all improvising," he says. "It's cool because you're doing it on the spot."
Dr. Lukas Schulze, a free jazz pianist, runs the music program at CoSa, the Coronado School of the Arts on the Islander campus. CoSa is a public arts conservatory for students in grades 9-12.
"A lot of these students are connected to other players," he says. For example, Shaughnessy's father Rick once managed a jazz club in Detroit.
Schulze makes some last minute adjustments and assignments before his group performs while the ensemble collectively warms up on "Milestones," a Miles Davis classic, in the room they call the Black Box. It's a small all-black student performance space with stage and a gallery of seats. It is adjacent to the back stage area of the main stage, which is where the ensemble is headed next.
"I don't have your music," he tells a complaining student. "Why would I have your music?"
There is an abundance of sax players in the group. Schulze divvies up solos among them.
Just ahead of the Islanders, SDSU's student jazz ensemble takes the stage for a noon concert. The SDSU guys are world-class, magic. Yeager breezes his students through a pair of opening songs, then begins bringing SDSU alumni out for pro-level solo spots. But oddly enough the auditorium is relatively empty, save for a few dozen in the audience.
The action is outside, where students from all over Southern California fiddle with their instruments and mingle with each other in a sea of colors. Each squad wears a different hue. They run in colored packs of all- blue or black or yellow or red T shirts and black pants or skirts. There is little else to identify them as the youthful keepers of a dying art. When they return to their respective campuses there will be no homecoming roll-out as for football or water polo. But no matter. Today, they are a community. They speak the same language. And they are only blocks away from the beach and the sun is out.
JazzFest will return to CoSa in May of 2013.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/15/24446/
It's a Saturday in May and borderline hot in spite of the relentless onshore breeze. 500 or so teenagers, all with music instruments, some of them held weapon-like are gathered under the shade trees on the campus of Coronado High School.
Welcome to JazzFest 2012.
Tara Noonan is the Festival coordinator. She says the JazzFest has been going on for 15 years. There is judging, she says, and competition, but no cash prizes. From the rules and regulations:
Each group will be limited to three selections, preferably of diverse styles. Total performance time will be 15-17 minutes. The remainder of your half hour will be spent in clinic receiving immediate, direct feedback from one or more of your adjudicators. You will also receive written and taped comments. The JazzFest entry fee of $275 includes the lunchtime concert.
For an additional fee of $225, a limited number of bands will have the opportunity to participate in the Salt & Pepper clinic with Bill Yeager, the nationally renowned jazz educator from San Diego State University.
"We're sold out this year, which doesn't usually happen." She says that 33 high school, community college, and college jazz ensembles are here today. A campus music program fundraiser? "No. The JazzFest covers its own expenses, and that's about all."
At 18, Daniel Shaughnessy is a senior. High school is in his rearview mirrors. He grew up on Coronado. Improbably, he wears a Caltrans-orange sweat shirt over the de rigueur black uniform of the Coronado High School jazz ensemble. He's a big kid, linebacker size. His knowledge of jazz sax is more sophisticated than I expected.
"I'm using the obligatory (he says the word obligatory with a shade of sarcasm) Otto Link mouthpiece." But rather than the hard-edged, bright and loud tone I've come to expect from such metal mouth pieces, Shaughnessy blows warm up tones that are round and full and dark and reedy.
"My dad says I have the exact same setup at Stan Getz."
How did he land up in jazz studies, as opposed to, say, an indie rock band? "I heard jazz and thought it was cool. What styles to I like? Blues, Sambas, and Bossas because of the complex range of emotions."
Shaughnessy began on alto sax in the sixth grade in band class, not an unusual scenario in the school districts that still have band classes. By eighth grade he was marching in the band of a military academy, hefting a much larger baritone sax. Tenor, he says, is now his main horn although he owns one of each: soprano, alto, tenor, and a bari.
"My alto is silver. It was made in 1929 in Elkhart." He practices two hours a day, he says. His tenor, a vintage Selmer MK VI, even though re-lacquered is possibly worth more than the book value of my Jeep.
He asks me if I want to trade and for a minute, I actually consider it.
Jazz as a future, or, as an avocation? The latter. Shaughnessy will attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the fall to study engineering.
"The music industry? It's not so good right now."
He also performs in the Generation Jazz Band, a local volunteer jazz big band, and in a quartet named after a Galapagos tortoise: "Lonesome George." One of his George mates is teen drummer Nick Velez.
"I started on piano at five," he says. "I transitioned to drums in the third grade. And accordion," he says. "It's such a chick magnet."
They go on about the accordion being a date magnet and such until I realize they are goofing me, the old guy writing down everything they are saying. Velez wants to play in an indie rock band some day. In the fall, he's off to UCLA to study music in earnest. He hopes to earn a degree in jazz studies. "Jazz is all improvising," he says. "It's cool because you're doing it on the spot."
Dr. Lukas Schulze, a free jazz pianist, runs the music program at CoSa, the Coronado School of the Arts on the Islander campus. CoSa is a public arts conservatory for students in grades 9-12.
"A lot of these students are connected to other players," he says. For example, Shaughnessy's father Rick once managed a jazz club in Detroit.
Schulze makes some last minute adjustments and assignments before his group performs while the ensemble collectively warms up on "Milestones," a Miles Davis classic, in the room they call the Black Box. It's a small all-black student performance space with stage and a gallery of seats. It is adjacent to the back stage area of the main stage, which is where the ensemble is headed next.
"I don't have your music," he tells a complaining student. "Why would I have your music?"
There is an abundance of sax players in the group. Schulze divvies up solos among them.
Just ahead of the Islanders, SDSU's student jazz ensemble takes the stage for a noon concert. The SDSU guys are world-class, magic. Yeager breezes his students through a pair of opening songs, then begins bringing SDSU alumni out for pro-level solo spots. But oddly enough the auditorium is relatively empty, save for a few dozen in the audience.
The action is outside, where students from all over Southern California fiddle with their instruments and mingle with each other in a sea of colors. Each squad wears a different hue. They run in colored packs of all- blue or black or yellow or red T shirts and black pants or skirts. There is little else to identify them as the youthful keepers of a dying art. When they return to their respective campuses there will be no homecoming roll-out as for football or water polo. But no matter. Today, they are a community. They speak the same language. And they are only blocks away from the beach and the sun is out.
JazzFest will return to CoSa in May of 2013.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/15/24446/