The Evening of Jazz

On April 24th Fair Grove’s High School Choir and Jazz Band hosted the Evening of Jazz which included performances from both the Jazz Band and the Choir, and for some songs, they even performed together. 

  Band director Natalie Palomo said, “Evening of Jazz is specifically about the jazz band (and choir!), and we play jazz music with a smaller group of kids than a normal band. It is usually more difficult than concert or marching band music. We also serve dinner for a price, so it’s a bit more fancy like dinner and a show rather than a normal concert. It’s one of my most favorite events we do!”

At the concert the band played the songs: Birdland, Viva La Vida, Cole Minor Blues, Megalovania, Straighten Up and Fly Right, I’ll Be Seeing You, Trofeo De Bolos, and Minnie the Moocher. The choir performed: Blackbird, Love is Love, All Star (An English Madrigal), It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t got That Swing), Just a Single Voice and Minnie the Moocher with the Jazz Band. 

The band served pulled pork sandwich dinner with hash brown casserole, baked beans, coleslaw and broccoli & cauliflower casserole sides and an apple cobbler for dessert all for 11 dollars. 

For the Jazz Band the solos, Elijah Daugherty, Easton Beltz, Calvin Zuch, Mitch Van Cleave, and Glen McDaniel all had instrumental solos. Some of which were even improvised. Easton Beltz, who plays the trumpet, explained, “When I did have my improv solos I planned out a general idea of what I wanted to do. But once it came time I just kinda let the music take me.”

 In choir in the song Love is Love Gracin Wood sang in Latin and Swahili, Easton Beltz sang in Spanish and Serbian, Aeryn Maskew sang in German, Lucas Lawrence sang in Mandarin, Hadi Wingo sang in French, Lydia Engel sang in Hindi, and Matt Cockroft sang in Czech. For the song Just a Single Voice Jillian Rockwell, Natalie Nolan, Chasity Kellogg, Gracin Wood, Matt Cockroft, and Connor Trussell all had solos.