25 or 6 to 4 - Ware County High School Jazz Band

[RobbieHazelwood]

we are playing this is our middle scholl jazz band and i play the upright bass during it it is amazing

[MrCirrusMinor]

I play guitar on this in my middle school jazz band. We do it so with a saxophone solo instead, but I've been trying to convince my teacher to let me play the original solo transposed :D

[Jsouleyrette]

the guitar player... it kinda fell apart to be honest. For high school I guess it was ok.

[Vintexen]

@Jsouleyrette I was thinking the same thing, I have to do this a solo to this for tommorow for a concert, Its hard for some reason, but I think I can do it better than this, eeek

[Jsouleyrette]

@Vintexen you just have to stop thinking, and let your hands and ears take over, thats the only way a solo ever works, I always screw up on solos during practice, but once I get on stage, I never make a single mistake, I just close my eyes and let everything else do the work,

[Vintexen]

@Jsouleyrette lol, I know, I couldn't get it in practice, but last week during the performance it was the best solo Ive done with that song, it was amazing. Not a single mistake. That's usually the way it happens, but I was afraid because I had never had a good solo in any of the practices, usually I get them right sometimes.

[animefancraze]

i dunno, that guitar solo was a little less energetic. I mean you dont need to do the actual solo, but you need energy.

[kevinjonaslover818]

Bass And Guitar Player<3 ;}} That's All I Gotta Say. <3

[Lukerdude51]

i play this song in jazz band im in 7th grade

[Noelsydnor]

dude, i'm in 7th grade and can play that almost just as good

[falling4u365]

Can I get Tabs for 1st Trumpet part?

[mixib58]

i know how to play it for 2nd trumpet, but not 1st, sorry

[dreamergirl1ooo]

holy crap im in middle school band and we realy stink cause im in 6th grade and im in first chair for the flute and in jazz band i play the guitar but we only have 32 people from the whole school and peeps rush real bad u guys r pretty good but not as good as our high school band

[MksG4lyfe]

the trombone doesnt play the high part were in the chicago the singer sings.... at least it sounds like its been lowered. i play trombone for my school and i have to get like 3 steps off the staff..

[Pianomagicdude]

It's in a different key. I have know I idea why the arranger did that, but you are right.

[Pianomagicdude]

This arrangement is normally performed by middle school jazz band. When our high school jazz band was just getting together, this was one of the easier pieces that we played. As time progressed, our jazz band became more advanced and started winning national competition.

It is simply a feature for our guitarist.

Our more serious charts over the years have included Count Bubba, Night Flight, Sweet Georgia Brown, Groove Merchant, and Shake Your Bones.

Thanks! Check out my other videos!

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude Guitar player is not a very good soloist. The rest of the band is good however. This is not Jazz though. I listened to other stuff you have posted. This is not Jazz. Change your name or play some real Jazz.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass We are a JAZZ ensemble and we roughly carry about twenty tunes in our folders varying styles - from classic swing (Basie, Ellington, Miller, etc...), to Rock and Fusion, Latin, Bop, to a new form of big band music calling back to Stan Kenton's "wall of sound" style.

Classification of artists into distinct music genres limit their performance and audience. As a performer yourself, I don't understand why you would want to argue about what genre of music this is.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude I play some jazz although I don't call myself a jazz musician. I have been a Jazz fan since the early 60's. Jazz must show a certain level of improvisation and rhythmic "Swing" that your group doesn't possess. Don't be offended though because true improvisational skills can only be developed with time and very few musicians of high school age have been playing long enough to possess those skills. What is Jazz? It's hard to define but I know it when I hear it.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass Well, I would love you to listen to our other stuff if I can obtain more recordings in the near future.  We play completely original solos, swing hard, and listen to each other. In the national competitions that we've attended (Atlanta, New Orleans, LA, New York, and Chicago), we've had a member win an award every year for being the best soloist.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass What genre do you classify this?  Rock? Fusion? Arguably, Rock as a genre would have never came about without Jazz. You, as a musician since the 70s would be an idiot to argue that there are absolutely no influences of Jazz in Rock music.

Let's discuss the band Chicago that originally performed this tune. Since you want to discuss genre, what genre would you place Chicago into? That's certainly hard to figure out if you go by traditional close-minded classifications.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude This is Rock. Chicago was a rock band, not a jazz band.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass Again, I state that Rock is very much influenced by Jazz. The improvisational and rhythmic aspect of Rock is a total carry-over from Jazz. In this video, we are playing in a Rock style - very different from Basie swing, but undoubtably influenced by the improvisational and rhythmic aspects of Jazz.

I don't think the members of Chicago would appreciate being called a rock band.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude Chicago never considered themselves a Jazz band and back then nobody else did either. Jazz influenced does not = Jazz.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass No. They didn't. Did they ever consider themselves Rock? They had and still have a completely different sound than ever "normal" rock band around. Everything from the horns to the very creative accents of the drums are different from what you would find in what an average layman considers a "rock band". I'm certain that Chicago and their fans would consider the band to be a fusion of several genres.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass Chicago built their sound upon influences of all genres, but many consider them to be a sort of Jazz/Rock fusion.

We're a Jazz band, so all we can play is Jazz? How do YOU define Jazz? We can't play any other genres of music that totally derived from Jazz? We can't show that we're flexible?

This video is from two years ago. Three months later, we went to a national competition in Chicago, IL.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass At that competition, we performed Lil' Darlin (Count Basie tune), Groove Mechant (Ever heard of Thad Jones&Mel Lewis?), and Birk's Works (I'm sure you've heard of Dizzy Gillespie). We were declared grand champions and placed in front of every other ensemble there.

On top of that, the band has been highly praised by trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, pianist Marcus Roberts, bassist Roland Guerin, and drummer Jason Marsalis. Go tell them that they don't know what jazz is.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude They praised your band because you deserved it for being a very good stage band. I have no argument with that but where are the extended improvised solos?

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass Listen man, let's stop arguing. You certainly do have valid arguments, and I'm glad that I've argued with someone with knowledge other than some random YouTube flamer. I hope you come back and enjoy any later videos that I can put up. In the meantime, I will subscribe to your channel. I love the videos you've favorited and the upload of the percussive street performers.

While we disagree, we are both musicians. Let's not waste our time arguing.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude OK, maybe I miss judged based on a limited number of recordings. For that I apologize. I love Jazz and I don't want it's true essence diluted into some effort to preserve the past, memorizing Charlie Parker's performance of Donna Lee note for note for example. It may be educational for sure but for a performance it's not Jazz. Take the solos of the masters, memorize them, learn from them but then never play them again. Be yourself.

[tbcass]

@tbcass Young people like yourself are the future. If real Jazz is to endure old timers like myself depend on people like yourself to make sure that happens.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass What you say is very true. I played a solo this past year on Sweet Georgia Brown. The sheet music had the changes and a transcription of a solo - something written in Basie's style, but nothing Basie would have ever played. In order to satisfy adjudicators, we had to send in a recording with myself playing the solo how it was dictated on the paper.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass I was extremely upset with this because I wanted to do something completely original. I agree that jazz isn't jazz without unique improvisation and the placement of feeling and soul in the music. For the later performance, the introductory solo was extended and I played my own improvisation. We all pride ourselves on improvisational skills and work hard to listen to each other and play solos that our characteristic of ourselves.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass I agree, by the way, on your thoughts on "commercialized Jazz". Sadly-that's the way we are dictated to play for certain recordings. I will provide a better sample of our work in the future to show that we're not all about playing these arrangements.

Thank you for your criticisms and your kind words. Everyone in the band is in love with Jazz - yes, true jazz that you are speaking of.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass I can assure you that years after leaving this high school, we will continue playing music and continue playing jazz. We don't intend to destroy the music - we intend to create new music.

Thanks.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass And what "other videos" are you referring to? My other videos hardly showcase the Ware County High School jazz ensemble. I believe I only have two other videos of us! Did you listen to Lil' Darlin'? Tell me that's not jazz when Jason Marsalis, Steve Dancz of UGA praised the maturity of sound and the triplet subdivision in the drums.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude Lil' Darlin was an excellent performance and deserves praise but without extended improvised solos I won't consider it Jazz, just Jazz-like or a Jazz arrangement. Jason Marsalis (an excellent drummer to be sure) and Steve Dancz (whoever he is) praising the "maturity of sound" and the drumming does not make it Jazz. I have no problem with your excellent band. I only have a problem with Stage Bands calling themselves Jazz Bands.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass We do have extended solo sections in our music. More importantly, during these solo sections, we listen to each other. Listening and responding is more important than anything when performing jazz, that's pretty much the essence of the music.

Go tell Count Basie or the late Neal Hefti that Lil' Darlin is just a Jazz arrangement and not true jazz. The actual music features opportunities for extended solo sections that we do play in live performances.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude The difference between a Jazz "arrangement" and Jazz is really in the performance. There are performances I hear on our local Jazz station that are Jazz arrangements without the extended improvisitations necessary for a Jazz performance necessary for Jazz. Most of Neal Hefti's recorded performances were commercialized Jazz arrangements not Jazz. Count Basie however performed Jazz. It's all in the performance, not the arrangement.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass The recording that we did, however, was put under many constraints, including a time constraint. It's a recording that we usually send in to adjudicators as a sample in hopes that they will select us to participate in a national competition.

If you sent in an audition tape to a label or wrote a song for a particular artist, you usually want to shorten your into and bridge sections. Why?

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass Because a recording label or artist might shut off your song without listening to the bulk of it if they are bored immediately by an 8 measure intro. They'll throw it away and they wouldn't have even listened to the melody.

We're under similar constraints. Hundreds of bands and orchestras submit their recordings. We want ours to get to the point and demonstrate later what we can do.

[Pianomagicdude]

@tbcass Change my name? What are you referring to? Be specific. Are you referring to "Pianomagicdude"? Or "Ware County High School Jazz Band"? "Pianomagicdude" is derived from two hobbies of mine. It doesn't say or hint that I play jazz.

[tbcass]

@Pianomagicdude I refer to the term Jazz in the band's name.

[dhspacman]

very good but the beggining wasnt the normal opening. im in middle school and can play 32 notes

[MiseryLovesCompany87]

wow. that was great! the drummer, is he related to the director? like his son or something (most likely)?

[emosswords]

holy crap.....im michaels neighbor...seriously :o

or atleast it looks like him o_O

[cn560]

we played this in concert band

[julster160]

dude guitar wasn't so good...

nice for the jazz band though