Council Junior Treasurer

Saturday morning saw Woburn’s Jazz Combo getting up bright and early and heading downtown to perform at the ASBO (Association for School Business Officials) annual meeting at the John Bassett Theater on Front Street.

We met at 8:00am, and performed from 8:30-9:00. Before Saturday, we had been led to believe that we were playing in the background during a registration process, as people were entering and walking around. Upon arrival at the John Basset Theater, however, we learned that we were actually a scheduled performance for 1300+ business officials from around North America. Needless to say, this made us very nervous. (Some of us also learned we should have been wearing all black…) We opened the performance with Rocks in my Bed, a slow Ellington tune; followed by Fly Me To The Moon, which we had not played until this performance. After this, we played Lover Man, a saxophone ballad; A Night in Tunisia; and ended with Don’t Get Around Much Anymore. The performance went very well – better than we had expected, in fact; and it turned out that it was more like we had originally thought. Although we were on a stage in front of a theater, the audience was talking and moving about throughout the performance. We were congratulated by organizers, and mentioned after our performance by a speaker who said “We would like to thank the Woburn Jazz Band for their wonderful performance. The group is from Scarborough, which is just outside Toronto, and led by Brian Farrow.” (After this, the speaker went on to introduce a choir as a group “also from just outside of Toronto”, who turned out to be from Etobicoke.)

Jazz Combo is a group of approximately eight or nine musicians who are looking for more exposed jazz playing through a small-group jazz experience. We rotate who attends each gig, to make sure we have a good mixture of high, medium and low voices, as well as rhythm players. Performers at today’s gig were Timothy Mark on trumpet, Scott Harbin on alto saxophone, Andrew Beaudoin on baritone saxophone, Jennifer Looi on piano, and Mr. Farrow on drums. The Combo is looking forward to their next gig in late November!