In the dressing room behind the stage at the Metropolitan Opera House, trumpeter and educator Winton Marsalis enthusiastically watched a live feed of big bands representing Osceola County County School of Arts from Kissimmee, Florida. Being a great jazz musician isn't just about playing fast, loud and high, but this song requires the musician to do all that.
The school's lead trumpet player was in the middle of the solo. As a dexterous player who could hit high notes, he sounded like an expert. “Look, the director is going to shake off the background here,” Marsalis said using some colorful languages that the soloist hasn't yet reached what he's good.
The director then made small gestures to the rest of his band and told them to wait for the solo to develop. It was on the charts that Marsalis heard shows hundreds of times, but each time it was filled with such small decisions, which made it a new experience.
It has been almost a century since the Duke Ellington orchestra became the house band for the Cotton Club on 142nd Street. Even where Ellington and his group of black musicians performed in front of an all-white audience, the patrons were expected to become active listeners. In his book “Duke Ellington's America,” Ellington says that during his performance, the club “sought to be silenced” and that anyone would soon arrive through the door.
Ellington knew that his work had a signature. He wrote with certain members of his orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges and trumpet player Cooty Williams.
Still, at Ellington, the annual high school big band festival hosted by Jazz at Lincoln Center and held over the weekend, teenagers around the world worked hard to channel musicians anyway.
This year, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the festival, 127 30 big bands sent on application tape came to New York to compete for the highest honors from the usual 15. Finalists included 27 American groups and bands from Australia, Japan and Spain. Each group essentially selected three songs to perform from the Ellington Library. The top 10 finishers advanced to the second final, competitive round. The top three then performed exhibition concerts at the Opera House rather than jazz in the Rose Room at Lincoln Center, as they needed additional abilities.
However, the atmosphere at the event, although strict, does not feel anything from the film “Whiplash.” At least that's not the case anymore. Years ago, organizers felt the competition was getting stronger and tried to soften the edge. Currently, students perform, but jam with kids from other schools, attend clinics with specialists, or eat meals sitting on instruments they play, rather than on schools. In the hallway, members of various schools spontaneously exploded into songs together.
“It's like a Top Arts Festival,” said Julia Trentino, jazz director at Newark Academy in Livingston, New Jersey, where the band won the competition in 2024.
Organizational work is not limited to contests. It implements an annual training program for band managers, and will often dispatch professional musicians who are members of the jazz of the Lincoln Center Orchestra, to help guide the bands that will compete in the finals.
This festival also serves as a tool for creating big band canons. For 30 years, the Lincoln Center team's Jazz scored sheet music for Ellington and Gillespie, as well as some of their contemporary works like Count Basie and Benny Carter, and sent them free to schools interested in competition. The process is not always simple, and often involves digging through Smithsonian archives, looking at existing handwritten scores, and transcribing them from the recording.
“There's a philosophy that jazz is a methodology, not an art form with Canon, but a methodology,” said Todd Stoll, Vice President of Jazz Education at Lincoln Center. “This historical perspective on music is not something I would say I was ignored, but it wasn't that there was a lot of focus at the university level. I got a Masters degree from a major conservatories. I didn't play Duque Ellington musical notes.”
That would now be immeasurable because of the work Jazz did at Lincoln Center. Marsalis bristled the idea that Ellington was not an international star before the festival existed, but essentially Ellington, and the work that makes it possible, may do anything to ensure that his work continues.
For Marsalis, who has been at the centre of discussion about Jazz Canon for decades, this could be a winning rap. But he essentially argues Ellington as an example of how playing old music doesn't have to be a backward-looking effort.
“We're not ironic,” he said. “When we're establishing new myths, how long does it take to attack the old myths? Every band auditioning for a New York spot is part of that new myth, an example of how the music is alive as long as it is interpreted, not historical documents.”
But until you become a part of it, this experience can be intimidating.
Dr. Olly Riddell, band director at Memphis Central High School in Memphis, first saw the video on YouTube for the group that reached the final of the Ellington Festival over a decade ago, he thought to himself, “We're never going to have a good band.”
Memphis Central is a public high school, and like most public school band directors, Dr. Liddell is responsible for not only jazz bands but also marching bands and concert ensembles. He has to process the funding and persuade the clinician to work with his band. None of his jazz students are privately taught. I'll save one person. Essentially, Ellington doesn't always have the best mind.
That doesn't apply to many groups where arts magnet schools and private academies offer instrument-specific instructors and many students take private lessons. But even without those extravagantities, witty directors and passionate kids can still compete. evidence? Memphis Central finished first in this year's tournament.
It's cliché to say that jazz is interactive music and conversation. However, those conversations are not limited to the stage. On Saturday, Memphis Central took to the stage during the judges' final performance, with the sound of Ellington's “Rocabai River” appearing at once. Tom's rumble with a low drum set. Crying from the corner. The growl trumpet soloist interrupts each written phrase.
My work has come back to life and is new. A crowd full of competitors and rivals sat with wide eyes and open mouths.
Obviously, none of them were cynical.
