By Gary Alexander
Special to the Weekly
One of the challenges of island life is the expense and time necessary to attend a single great musical event in Seattle. You must find a place to stay overnight, negotiate the ferries and the freeways, both ways. Alas, a $25 concert ticket can easily turn into a $250 trip for a music lover. Out of inertia, we generally stay home and dream longingly of the concerts we could have seen.
In the last seven years, however, thanks to Dean and Carolyn Jacobsen and the great people from Garfield, one of the greatest jazz bands in Seattle comes to visit Lopez Island each October. This year, the band will return to Woodmen Hall, 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 25. Since 2008, Lopez has often been the first venue for the school year – but not this year. We’re third in line, since Garfield scheduled one other public appearance before us, at Seattle’s Triple Door on Oct. 20 as part of the 26th annual Earshot Jazz Festival, Seattle’s premier jazz festival.
Under the direction of Clarence Acox for the last 43 years, Garfield is usually voted one of the top four or five high school jazz bands in America. Each May, the 15 top-rated high school bands in America compete in New York at the Essentially Ellington contest. Last May, Garfield won the Outstanding Trombone Section, Outstanding Trumpet Sections and several individual instrumentalist awards and was voted the best public school band in the nation. Alas, that’s not exactly how the award was worded. Garfield won “Honorable Mention,” but the three bands that beat Garfield were all “arts magnet” schools, i.e., the Tucson Jazz Institute, the Jazz House Kids of Montclair, NJ and the Dillard Center for the Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in that order.
Garfield is not an arts magnet school for the simple reason that there are about a dozen other top high school jazz programs in and around Seattle: 13 different Washington State schools have been invited to the New York finals over the years, led by Roosevelt with 15 appearances in 16 years. Years ago, jazz great Wynton Marsalis told the other competitors they’ll have to “come to terms with Seattle” by practicing harder, but maybe they came to terms with Seattle by creating magnet schools. (Perhaps the judges will consider a separate award for public schools someday.)
The Garfield band has been invited to 13 of the last 16 Essentially Ellington contests, winning four times, more than any other band. What’s more amazing is that, while the first team was in New York last May, the Garfield Jazz Ensemble II defended its home turf by winning first place in the 3A division in the 32nd annual Bellevue High School Jazz Festival. The junior varsity also won the Sweepstakes Trophy for the most outstanding overall ensemble of the festival. In the Lopez Island concerts, you will often see mixtures of Band I and Band II. In past Lopez concerts, Mr. Acox has brought two full saxophone sections and two or three pianists or drummers. Some of the band members form a connection with Lopez that lasts far beyond their high school years. Earlier this year, three brass players from the 2008 Garfield band (along with trombonist Andy Clausen from Roosevelt High) released an album which they recorded on Lopez Island the previous year. Calling themselves “The Westerlies,” the four musicians recorded the music of Seattle composer Wayne Horvitz in a CD, “Wish the Children Would Come on Home.” The three Garfield brass players in the Westerlies – trumpeters Riley Mulherkar and Zubin Hensler, plus trombonist Willem de Koch – were in the first band that visited Lopez on Oct. 18, 2008.
Lopez Island and Manhattan aren’t the only two world-famous locations they ply their trade. Every other summer, the Garfield band tours Europe, playing to huge audiences at some of Europe’s greatest jazz festivals, including Montreux (Switzerland), the Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), Jazz a Vienne (France) and the North Sea Jazz Festival (now held in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands).
You don’t have to travel to Italy – or even Seattle – to hear this world-class youth band. Come to Woodmen Hall on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 for the best big band you’ll ever hear…here.
Gary Alexander programs jazz music on KLOI.org, 3 to 5:30 p.m. each Friday and Monday.
