On November 2, 2017, Long Beach Poly’s Jazz program performed their annual fall concert at Hughes middle school.
The night began with a performance from a Jazz C. Junior, Maya Cheav played the piano for Jazz C. “The concert was great. You wouldn’t believe the amount of talent at this school,” said Cheav. Jazz C performed four songs: “Second Line,” “Avalon,” “Sugar Train,” and “Tenor Madness.”
Next in line was Jazz B, performing “Cheesecake,” “Butterfat,” “Teach Me Tonight,” and “Smackdown.”
“We performed four songs, all pretty different. Two swing, one funk, and one ballad,” said senior Blake Leigh, who played the piano for Jazz B. “I think that the band’s hard work really showed in our performance.”
Jazz A2 was second to last to perform. Drummer, junior Marcelo Murillo played for Jazz A and commented, “I felt as though from the beginning of our first rehearsal of the tunes, we struggled as a group. Then overtime, through practicing as a group and on our own, we developed the songs and shaped the music in a way that sounded amazing. On the whole, the concert sounded great.”
Jazz A2 performed the songs: “Hey That’s Nacho Cheese”, “Body and Soul”, and “I’ll Be Seeing You”.
Jazz A closed out the event with more spectacular performances. Senior Kyle Van Lant played the saxophone for Jazz A. “We played New Mambo, Count Bubba, Duck Ankles, Helen’s Heart, and the Trolley song, which Jacob Wolff arranged. I had a ton of fun; we really pulled through at the performance, as did all the other groups,” said Van Lant.