On March 8, all three West High jazz bands boarded a bus at 7:30 a.m. to Davenport Central High School for the Southeast Iowa Bandmasters Association Jazz Festival.
Jazz Lab, Jazz Collective and Jazz Ensemble performed at 9:45 a.m., 1:25 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., respectively, between performances from other schools’ jazz bands including, City, Liberty and Davenport Central.
During jazz competition season, each jazz band plays its same set of songs at each competition. The SEIBA Jazz Festival was the only competition that Jazz Lab attended; Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Collective competed at three others.
Jazz Lab played “Bluesin’ with Bradley” by Doug Beach, “Afro Blue” by Mongo Santamaria and arranged by Michael Sweeney, “Boogie Lou” by Paul Baker and “Sin Palabras” by Rich Iocona.
Jazz Collective’s set was “Back to the Basement” by Bret Zvacek, “Gentle Rain” by Luiz Bonfa and arranged by Kris Berg and “La Llama Azul” by Bob Washut.
Jazz Ensemble played “The Song is You” by Jerome Kern and arranged by Mark Taylor, “Young and Foolish” by Albert Hague and arranged by Frank Mantooth and “Chick on the Grill” by Victor Lopez.
During the awards ceremony at 5:00 p.m., Jazz Collective won second place in the second band category. Jazz Ensemble didn’t place in the top three in the first band category, but they still had a chance at making the Iowa Jazz Championships, the annual competition between 60 of the state’s best high school jazz bands.
The top two bands in the first band category at SEIBA are guaranteed a spot in IJC. Other bands still have a chance to advance further if they are wild card-eligible, meaning they beat one of the top two SEIBA winners at another competition, won an Iowa jazz festival or finished third at SEIBA.
At SEIBA, North Scott placed first and Davenport Central placed second in the first band category. Since Jazz Ensemble placed higher than Davenport Central at the Coe College Jazz Summit on Feb. 28, they were wild card-eligible. They’re also eligible because they beat Linn-Mar and Kennedy, the two automatic qualifiers from the northeastern counterpart of SEIBA.
The IJC Board of Directors usually invites three wild card-eligible bands from each class depending on their assessment of the most qualified bands. That is based on results from previous jazz festivals, especially how wild card-eligible bands placed in comparison to other eligible bands as well as the automatic qualifiers from SEIBA.
On the afternoon of Sunday, March 9, IJC emailed Jazz Ensemble Director Brian Zeglis that they had selected his ensemble for a wild card invitation. Later that day, IJC posted the invited bands on their website, namely, Iowa City West.
Jazz Ensemble will perform at 10:30 a.m. in the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University, and the awards ceremony will be at 6:15 p.m.
Although Jazz Ensemble is advancing to IJC, SEIBA marks the end of the jazz competition season for Jazz Collective and Jazz Lab.
The next jazz band performance is the Corridor Jazz Project Concert on Tuesday, March 11, where Jazz Ensemble will perform “Chick on the Grill” by Victor Lopez and “Ms. Garvey, Ms. Garvey” by Jason Marshall. Their set will feature saxophonist Dr. Damani Phillips, who is the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Iowa.
For the last jazz band performance of the year, Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Collective and Jazz Lab will perform downtown on Friday, May 23 in the Friday Night Concert Series as part of Summer of the Arts.
