Tabbed No. 1 in country by Down Beat magazine Folsom High's jazz band horn section sax players belt out a tune at a practice last week in the music building on campus. joe ajax/ the telegraph "It's time for a new song," said Curtis Gaesser, director of the Folsom High School Jszz Band.
"That's what I'm promoting. We don't play standards. It's my job to educate the public.
" Down Beat magazine agrees, ranking the 20-piece Folsom unit the No. 1 high-school jazz band in the country this year. On tough passages, group members routinely take direction orally from Gaesser, who scats out a phrase imaging rhythmic and melodic nuance as intended by the composer.
That helps when the composer is, say, Charlie Parker, whose "Confirmation" is a band staple. Ensemble horn harmonies and punches frame a 64-bar solo taken by pianist Yang Lu, 17, a senior. The piece is ready, and it needs to be, said Gaesser.
The band last week was fine-tuning for a gig last weekend at the world-renowned Monterey Jazz Festival, to be joined by seven jazz-band alumni. The band revels in and prides itself on playing one of the toughest compositions now extant for big band. It's by arguably the planet's current most complex big band composer, Maria Schneider.
She is influenced by Gil Evans, a composer who in his own day was too far-out for many soloists to find a comfort zone. Miles Davis was one who could, and on Schneider's "Dance You Monster to My Soft Song," Folsom High trumpeter Sean Weiss finds Miles' tone.
News RSS