On the afternoon of Thursday, May 28th, 2009, Woburn Music students were lucky enough to play host to one of Humber College’s many jazz bands, touring schools across Toronto as a part of the “Jazz in the Schools” program in partnership with the Toronto District School Board. The show featured a wide variety of exciting music, and ended very memorably with the school being put into a lockdown during the very last song!

The 11-piece jazz band, featuring three saxophones, two trumpets, one trombone, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums, and percussion, was fronted by three female singers, and led by trumpeter Brian Dickinson, who Woburn’s Senior Jazz Band remembers as their clinician from the MusicFest Jazz Festival in February!

The band began the show with a bang, playing a traditional swing piece, featuring numerous soloists. Then, they rapidly took us through a brief history of jazz, playing a piece from each era and style of jazz they discussed. The history began in New Orleans, and a reduced band played a Dixieland-style piece, which was very upbeat and interesting. Next, the “tour” took students to the Mississippi delta region, where singer Alanna sung a Delta Jazz piece, accompanied only by guitarist Derek.

Next, the entire band returned to the stage and played a piece in the style known as Chicago Jazz, which is similar to much of the music Woburn’s Senior Jazz Band plays. After this played a 1950s bebop piece, which is the type of music made famous by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. They then moved into cool jazz, playing a Gerry Mulligan composition, and then into soul, playing “I Feel Good” by James Brown.

The band’s second-last piece was a Cuban jazz piece, arranged by a faculty member at Humber College, as jazz history cannot be complete without the enormous contribution Latin Americans have made to the style. The band finished with an exciting African jazz piece, again composed by a faculty member of Humber College.

It was during the final moments of that last piece that Woburn was locked down, and students and guests alike huddled in the backstage wings of the auditorium for two and a half hours. Certainly that touch will leave the day in the memories of many Woburn Music students!

Woburn Music thanks Humber College for the time they spent with us, and feels honoured to have been an audience for such excellent young musicians! For anyone interested in Humber’s music program, more information can be found at their website: http://creativeandperformingarts.humber.ca/music/music