This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Arts & Entertainment

More Than 2,000 Students Perform at Annual Jazz Festival

Young musicians play their hearts out during the Santa Cruz Jazz Festival at Cabrillo Community College Friday and Saturday.

Participants at the 25th Annual Santa Cruz Jazz Festival saluted the rain with tapping feet and high spirits, as more than 2,000 middle and high school students played their jazzy hearts out during the Friday-Saturday festival at Cabrillo Community College.

Student participants from all over the state converged on Cabrillo’s recently renovated Visual and Performing Arts complex to perform for judges, attend workshops taught by professional musicians and learn how to improve their performances through judge’s critiques.

With three stages and various practice rooms, the Visual and Performing Arts center offered just enough space for the 125 bands and vocal groups.

Find out what's happening in Capitola-Soquelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

As each group performed, judges critiqued them and spoke their comments and suggestions into voice recorders, which they later shared with student performers during a constructive workshop.

“It really helped build the band,” said Gretchen Tuscher, a jazz guitarist for Hill Middle School in Novato. “[The judges] were trying to get the trombones to play louder, and all of us to be louder in general.”

Find out what's happening in Capitola-Soquelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Performers attended workshops and even received a surprise during a sight-reading workshop, where students were asked to play music they had never seen before.

“The stuff they play for judges they have practiced for months, but if you’re a musician in the professional world and you’re in the studio, you’ve got to be able to play whatever’s handed to you,” said Steve Gray, jazz festival president.

Students and  festival guests also had the opportunity to participate in interactive workshops taught by professional musicians, such as saxophonist Paul Contos.

 “I try to come up with ways to inspire people to listen to the language of jazz, and the language of jazz is really changing,” Cantos said. “It’s important to go back to what Louis Armstrong played, or Sonny Rollins [and] Wayne Shorter, to really hear that language of jazz.”

Cantos demonstrated the “language” he discussed by playing his saxophone and using inflections in his tone and placing emphasis on certain notes, rather than playing all of them equally. 

Gray, who performed with the jazz group the Little Big Band on Friday night, also spoke of going back to the old days of jazz, back to the Big Band era of the 1940s and before. 

“Every Friday night, there was a 19-piece band at the Coconut Grove, [and] back before TV, that’s what people did,” he said. “Now it’s harder than ever to get people to leave their houses to see live music."

Gray congratulated students on their performances, attributing their success to hard work, good music programs and teachers.

“It’s just amazing to see the kids creating the music at the level they are,” Gray said. “Most started at the fifth-grade level, and most of them are playing better than college students.”

The jazz festival culminated in a Saturday-night concert showcasing many of the top-voted schools of the weekend. Scholarships of $100$500 were awarded to outstanding students to put toward music lessons or attend music camps. 

For more information on the Santa Cruz Jazz Festival, click here.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?