Brooks Secondary School’s jazz band ended the school year on a high note. The group was formally invited to play at the recent 28th annual Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival.
The 30-member ensemble made its way from the qathet region to the lower Sunshine Coast on June 15, with qathet School District band/music teacher Paul Cummings leading the way.
This year the festival included an outdoor main stage at Sechelt's Hackett Park, where the young jazz musicians from Brooks played an afternoon performance.
"The artistic director of the Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival, Paul Hood, and some of the board members, came up to our Townsite Jazz Festival," said Cummings. "On one of the first nights, Brooks Jazz Band opened for the Cory Weeds Quartet. Hood came running up to me afterwards and said he wanted to get the band down to Gibsons for this year's festival."
Cummings credits the students' animated performance to their recent trip to Cuba, where they were immersed in Latin music and dance.
"They were playing well and having so much fun [at Townsite Jazz Festival]," said Cummings. "We just got back from Cuba, so, all of a sudden, my students can move a little bit more on stage."
Cummings said Hood was quite surprised when he came and saw the caliber of music training and opportunity students have here.
The 30 students and Cummings caught the ferry from Saltery Bay Terminal on June 15 and were picked up by a bus provided by the Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival.
“[Hood] wanted to make sure none of the kids were out of pocket and covered all the expenses, and even provided pizza," said Cummings. "We played at a brand new stage/gazebo and amphitheater. The setting is beautiful, and they [jazz festival crew] spoiled us rotten; when we got there, we had a sound man and two assistants who were running around setting up microphones for everybody and making sure the bass players were happy."
Cummings said it was the band's final performance of the year, so it was a big deal for the students to have that kind of professional level experience.
"They are a diverse group and we play a lot of different styles," said Cummings. "We played everything from greasy blues tunes to good old big-band, ballads, pop and funk."
The band went through 10 songs before its hour on stage was up, added Cummings, and well over 120 people were in the audience.
"We had a vocalist named Hope who put her trumpet down and came up and sang a beautiful ballad," he said. "I think we kept everybody [in the audience] guessing."
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