For the first three years of my elementary school I remember seeing the shiny metallic instruments and the fascinating sounds coming from them. I craved to play one of them, but I was stuck singing with the other younger kids rather than in the band that was only available starting at fourth grade.
In fourth grade, I signed up. My band teacher looked at my fingers the first day of class and told me, “You’re a sax player.” Apparently having long fingers was ideal for that instrument. I originally had wanted to play the trumpet, but I respected my band director’s opinion, so I decided to play the alto saxophone. That was the instrument I played from fourth grade through my senior year of high school. More importantly, it was the instrument that I played in my high school’s award-winning jazz band.
As a member of the jazz band, I spent long Wednesday evenings rehearsing with other jazz musicians as the second chair alto saxophone. One of my good friends and fellow senior, Arnau, was the most talented and most dedicated musician. He was respected by everyone in the band, including our director Mr. C. Arnau was a piano player who had worked hours upon hours every day to become the best improvisational pianist in our school’s history. Another senior, AJ, was a jokester. He played the baritone saxophone; one of the larger instruments in the band. While he was not the greatest musician, he was always able to bring everyone’s spirits up and help us have a good time. Since we were all seniors, we wanted to make this year’s state competition memorable. We chose to do that by including a very difficult piece into our senior year repertoire: “The Rotten Kid” by Buddy Rich.
“The Rotten Kid” is one of many songs on the album The New One! It has been played throughout the years by all sorts of jazz ensembles, both at the professional and high school levels. It is a crowd pleaser piece; something to make the audience demand an encore by incorporating catchy melodies that get the heart pumping. It had a loud volume, fast tempo, and driving beat. But while it sounds extremely fun and lighthearted, the technical difficulty behind it is nothing to take lightly. For this reason, learning the song became the primary goal for our band in my senior year. We had numerous playing tests in front of the entire class to ensure everyone was practicing their parts, adding extra pressure on all of us to perform well. This song was the accumulation of all our training and hard work as musicians, and when it came to our final performance at the state competition, we did not disappoint anyone.
In March of 2017, we were finally at the competition. While we felt confident in our abilities, we were all a little on edge. It was time to show off our hard work to an audience of state judges, parents, and peers. We needed to get a superior rating, not only to impress our teacher but to prove to ourselves that we could do it. Since I had the second alto saxophone part, I was mostly a supportive role. We had three songs, with the finale being “The Rotten Kid.” After we played the first two songs, we felt confident that we had done a decent job. But once we started to perform “The Rotten Kid,” we all could feel the intensity and the passion in our instruments. It was a perfect representation of our band’s values and personality—loud, fun, difficult, and passionate. This was a performance to remember.
The consistent, hard-hitting drum line from our lead percussionist Niles added a constant intensity, while the quick-moving saxophone lines that I was a part of showed off the difficulty of the piece and added a catchy melody. Meanwhile, the trumpets and trombones blasted loud punch lines throughout to accentuate the melody. As both AJ and Arnau played amazing solos, the energy was felt by everyone (including the audience). Every one of us was a necessary ingredient to a cohesive sound.
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After we finished the song, we walked off stage and everyone was smiling. We could not wait to discuss how good we felt about the performance. It was full of energy and excitement, and while we pretty much knew we were getting a superior rating, we honestly did not really care. AJ’s solo was a pleasant surprise for everyone, as he had been struggling with it throughout the year. And of course, Arnau’s solo blew everyone away.
All of us were standing outside the concert hall complimenting each other’s solos, constantly smiling and giving high fives and just feeling like a unified team that had accomplished its goal. This song brought us together, and as it was the end of my senior year I could not have imagined it ending any other way. We could feel the success and accomplishment. Those of us who were graduating could feel that this was the perfect finale to a great four years together.
Project 1: Jazz Band
