12th
I Saw My High School Jazz Band at Lincoln Center
The jazz band of my alma mater, Eau Claire Memorial High School (go Abes!), played at Lincoln Center yesterday in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington contest. They send out Ellington scores to 57,643 schools or something like that, and you record your band playing three of them and send it back, and the top 15 bands get to come to New York. I got to play there in 2002 and it was an amazing experience. Really incredible high school musicians and you get to meet Wynton Marsalis and all that jazz. Anyway, the band made it again this year and I met up with four friends from high school who live in the city who also used to be in the jazz band and we watched them play. The band was incredible. For the first time in our six trips to New York, they placed in the top three and got to play a song with Wynton in the evening at Avery-Fisher Hall. Totally deserved it.
Also, earlier in the year, Pitchfork declared Eau Claire Memorial Jazz Ensemble I “much cooler” than your high school jazz band.
