Sisters students shine at Jazz Festival

Sisters Jazz Band students performed at the Oregon Jazz Festival held on the campuses of the University of Oregon and Lane Community College on January 20-21.

The two-day event started with a Friday concert featuring two 18-member college jazz bands, the Lane Jazz Ensemble and the Oregon Jazz Ensemble. Both are groups that continually receive top recognition through Downbeat Magazine, the Reno International Jazz Festival and the International Association of Jazz Educators.

On Saturday, 25 high school and seven middle school bands performed sets of music for a panel of adjudicators. The adjudicators then spent time working with each band directly after their performance, providing students instruction to reinforce things which they perform well and assist them in areas that need improvement.

The highlight of the Oregon Jazz Festival is the quality of this adjudication panel, according to Sisters band instructor Jody Henderson. Each year top jazz educators from university jazz studies programs are brought in to work with the students who attend. The panel at this year’s event represented the University of Kansas, the University of Northern Colorado, Washington State University and Whitman College.

Four Sisters groups performed on Saturday: the SHS Varsity and JV Jazz Bands (each with 18 members), as well as two smaller groups, the SHS Jazz Quintet and SMS Jazz Quintet. According to Henderson, all the groups were greeted with enthusiasm and positively challenged by the adjudicators, who encouraged the Sisters students to keep doing the wonderful playing they were doing, but to seek “the next level.”

An evening encore concert closed the event. The Saturday evening concert headlines top current jazz artists in the country and in the past has brought the likes of Marian McPartland, John Faddis, Mike Stern and dozens more top artists to the stage. This year the concert featured saxophonist Dick Oats and trombonist John Mosca, both from New York, with extensive resumes.

The encore concert also features a selected two of the 32 school bands from the student performances to be featured as “Outstanding Festival Bands” to perform as an opening act. This year the Sisters High School Quintet was one of the two groups chosen to perform in this concert. The Quintet features Justin Veloso, Jared Henderson, Benji Nagel, and Tyson and Shalena Edmunson.

The Oregon Jazz Festival is not a competition, however on closing night a brief awards ceremony is held to acknowledge individuals and sections from the student bands for exceptional performance on Saturday.

Sisters students received an admirable portion of those awards, as each of the following are given to only one section or person at the festival:

• Outstanding Middle School Rhythm Section awarded to the Sisters Middle School Quintet members Blake Henderson, Trevor Ford and Tanner Smith.

• Outstanding High School Rhythm Section awarded to the Sisters High School Quintet members Justin Veloso, Jared Henderson and Benji Nagel

• Outstanding Bassist awarded to Jared Henderson.

• Outstanding Guitarist awarded to Benji Nagel.

Additionally, full tuition scholarships to the Oregon Music Jazz Improvisation Camp ($335 each) were awarded to Justin Veloso, Jared Henderson and Benji Nagel.

The SHS varsity and JV bands will travel to Clarke College on January 26-27 to participate in a jazz competition there for the first time.