Sarah's Jazz Bash

Some of the jazz choir teachers in the area haven't been all that happy with the way the direction the all-state jazz choir has been going so they decided to get their choirs together and have what they called a Jazz Bash. This is so that their jazz kids could experience a little of what the all state jazz choir gets to experience without having to make the choir.

Sarah has been really excited for it and really loved getting together with all the other choirs. They had a guest clinician named Michelle Weir come and teach them a lot so it was a really great experience for all of them.

They divided the choirs into smaller groups, each consisting of members from each school. They did this for two days and had a concert each night. Sarah's jazz choir from Mountain View sang last night and then her choir that consisted of all the high schools sang tonight. Sarah called yesterday because she was excited that she was picked to do a solo in their song.

This afternoon, about 3 hours before they were to sing, she called me and told me her tongue was swelling up and needed medicine right away. Luckily we were headed over there anyway because we were feeding the group dinner. My poor daughter takes after her mother and has chronic hives. Usually this just means that she gets hives everyday. Sometimes her face or tongue or both will swell up. We obviously get very nervous when this happens. All I could think of was how fast could I get there to get her her medicine and "I hope she can sing her solo!". It was her first scatting solo and she was already nervous enough that she would be okay. The swelling was not going to help her nerves!

Luckily, it all turned out fine. Her swelling went down and her solo was great even if she felt like it wasn't. Here is her choir and her solo:

I thought they did a good job especially since it was a group of kids who have never sung together and only had 3 hours to practice the song.

After all the choirs sang each night, the audience got to hear Michelle Weir sing. Sarah was way excited because supposedly Michelle is an amazing jazz musician. Well, she was excited until she had to listen to her sing for like 45 minutes straight...each night....

Okay, she probably is an amazing musician as far as composing, arranging, piano playing, etc. goes but it kind of was torture to have to listen to that for 45 minutes. I understand that this is how jazz is but it kind of reminded me of listening to one of my five year old nieces sing a song that they are making up as they sing it. Except the niece is cute so it's actually fun to watch. Am I dead wrong about this? Does everyone else think she's amazing? I don't get it. She did get a standing ovation so I must be wrong.(?) I do have to say that I really enjoyed the band that played with her. Especially the pianist. Amazing!