“It was amazing,” Aragon Music Director Troy Davis remarks as he recounts the concert in the new theater, “The sound was great, it has space where you can spread out and really set up properly to get the best acoustics. There are a lot of bells and whistles—perks of the theater that help to make our performance experience that much better and enhance the environment for us.”
Davis describes the jazz invitational concert that invited San Mateo High School to Aragon on Thursday, Nov. 29. Like Davis, music directors, musicians, and audience members alike were equally awed by the new theater.
Junior Megumi Nozawa comments, “Everything sounded different compared to [the old theater]. This theater projects more and the sound system is really new. The sounds are really crisp, and it was really nice.”
With regards to the concert, Nozawa says, “The purpose [of this concert] is to recognize the inauguration of our new theater by inviting other schools to perform with us.”
For the preparation prior to the concert, sophomore Logan Williams comments, “There hasn’t really been any extra preparation because the songs we are playing are the ones we have been playing since the beginning of the year.”
However, freshman Ray Ishizaki says, “We’ve really improved from where we started. We just have really worked on getting our entrances and tuning down.”
The concert began with the Aragon Jazz Band playing “When You’re Smiling,” a moderately paced tune that featured soloists sophomore Julio Choy on piano, freshman Iven Yen on bass, and Ishizaki on tenor saxophone.
After a couple more songs, the Aragon Jazz Combo performed next. The combo consisted of junior Scott Bell, senior Abby Clemens, sophomore Dennis Bremer, Ishizaki, and Choy.
The San Mateo Band followed the two Aragon Bands by playing five songs. The varied song selection was evident from the Latin song, “Bistro Latino” to the Funk tune, “Famus Gramus.” In addition, softer songs such as “What I Did for Love” by the late Marvin Hamlisch were also included. Tribuzi says, “I really like what I did with Marvin Hamlisch’s song. It was a tribute to him.”
For the final portion of the performance, the Aragon Jazz Ensemble played four diverse pieces. Of the four, “Paranoid Android” by Radiohead provided a unique twist compared other songs performed, and the divergence received enthusiastic applause. The piece was chosen by Clemens, who says, “Last year, I really just wanted to choose something that was a little bit different, and we didn’t really get the chance to play it last year, so I brought it in this year. There are different sections to the song that almost kind of tell a story, so it’s kind of creepy, then it’s kind of gospel-y, heavenly, then it goes into the hard rock crazy stuff.”
Clemens conducted the song halfway into the piece. “I wasn’t expecting to do that at all,” she comments, “There’s a part in the song where it’s supposed to slow down, and we need to have a director. But one of the kids wasn’t there, so Mr. Davis was playing in his place. One of the kids asked who was going to direct it, and someone else said for me to do it because I know the song.”
The ensemble concluded with a song called “Duru Duru Syndicate,” a song that started slowly, but got quicker as the song progressed. Davis remarks, “[It] was my favorite song because I just feel like it’s fun, it’s well-written, it’s changing of styles gave it variety, and it’s got a lot of energy.”
One audience member, Lester Chun, who is also the music director for Crocker Middle School comments, “I enjoyed the fact that eight of my former students from Crocker were there performing. [It was nice], watching the progress and seeing how good they’ve gotten. These are just high school kids and they sound great. It’s nice to see young players play so well.”
Photo Gallery: Aragon Jazz Invitational
