Hello, good morning, and welcome to the Saturday Morning News Post!
How time flies! Here I am, half way through my Masters degree in jazz composition, and what a year it’s been, a veritable roller-coaster ride of emotions and jazz-educational triumphs! Well,… maybe not, but it’s been a damn good experience for me so far and next semester is shaping up to be even better.
Why better? Well, yours truly will be directing McGill’s Jazz big band 3 next year!
In the words of the Kool-Aid man… OH YEAH!! Finally! A position of power! Molding minds! Making and breaking jazz careers on a whim. THEY WILL RESPECT MY AW-THOR-I-TAY!!
But readers, I won’t let this new found position of authority go to my head. In fact, the audition for this position was pretty damn humbling,… border line emasculating actually. And it went a little something like this…
The audition required conducting one of McGill’s big bands for 10 minutes. “No problem.” I thought “I’ll just choose a piece, listen to some recordings of it, study the score, and throw down with big band 3 for 10 minutes.”
However, I later found out that I would have to conduct big band 1, the top band (which is full of my peers and already sounds great). Also, I didn’t get to choose the piece I would conduct and one more small point,… I HAD TO SIGHT-READ THE FUCKING CHART!
So picture, if you will, a guy who has no experience leading a big band, walking in to conduct a piece he’s never seen in front of a quality big band (made up of my peers) and the entire jazz faculty. Yeah,…it went about as well as you would expect.
Anyways, despite my lack of actual “know-how” my brilliance and innate leadership abilities must have somehow shone through, ’cause I got the gig y’all!
On that note, I gotta wrap this SMNP up and get some practicing done.
Thanks for reading and have a fantastic week everyone! 
James,
How ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!! Congratulations to you and major applause for this new achievement. One more notch in your belt!
Don’t you just need to nod to get them started and close your hand to get them to stop? It’s jazz!
You got off easy, man. A top notch big band is easy to direct because they know what they’re doing, even if you don’t. Imagine walking in to face a really crappy middle school band, filled with hormonal, hyperactive teenagers who can barely play, and a big stack of scores you’ve never seen before. Then imagine doing that every day of your working life.
If you’re a high school band sub, that’s your day, everyday.
That’s dark John. Pretty dark stuff.