Welcome to the Utopia Forums! Register a new account
The current time is Fri Mar 29 10:13:48 2024

Utopia Talk / Politics / OT. Tiny city sends jazz combo
patom
Member
Thu May 25 06:17:45
to National HS competition and takes 2nd place.

http://www...jTyh7G9QNaAlgqeHsIAEyJmJKbqOaM
williamthebastard
Member
Thu May 25 08:24:39
Not allowed to click it but Ive been really digging this guy lately, if youre into modern big bands. These guys are insane

http://youtu.be/JzXslx1loo0
patom
Member
Thu May 25 09:12:28
I listen to jazz almost every afternoon in order to drown out the wifes passion for cop reality shows. I've always liked big bands and jazz, blues, good singers of any genre. Not a hell of a lot of new singers that I really enjoy.

It just surprised me that these 4 kids from tiny Eastport Maine were this good. I've been to Eastport many times and have friends that live there.
murder
Member
Thu May 25 11:11:25

How four musicians from a tiny Maine high school soared above national competition

Their attitude kept them positive: “We’ll just do the best we can, just do our thing.”

EASTPORT, Maine — The easternmost city in the United States also has the distinction of being the smallest city in Maine. Just under 1,300 people live in Eastport. In New York or California, that’s not the population of a city—it’s the population of an apartment building.

Against the odds, Eastport still has its own high school, Shead High School, with an enrollment of just 87 students. While no one gets lost or left behind in such an intimate environment, the low numbers present formidable challenges. Music teacher Robert Sanchez puts it plainly: “If you can play and you’re good, you’re going to be in the jazz program.”

And what a program it is. This year, the school’s quartet, the Shead Ahead Jazz Combo, won the only gold medal at the state high school jazz festival—an impressive accomplishment in itself for a school with so few students.

Dig deeper, though, and the story gets even better. Little more than a year ago, two members of the quartet, bassist Antonio Vizcarrondo and guitarist Nate Tardiff, didn’t even play an instrument. As they were watching the school’s jazz group, an idea struck. They thought it would be “cool if we were just up there kind of shredding away on the guitars,” Vizcarrondo said.

“A couple of weeks later we found out we could get into the classes," Vizcarrondo added. "We started coming in here and practicing every day, and before we knew it we were in the band.”

Also in the band was Ellis Zipper-Sanchez, an eighth grader who is an exceptionally gifted guitar player and admirer of jazz legend Wes Montgomery, and Kieran Weston, a drummer who apparently came out of the womb with musical talent.

“I’ve never had one [drum] lesson in my life,” Weston said. “And I couldn’t tell you the last time I practiced.”

One month after the state championship, Shead Ahead traveled to Philadelphia to compete in the prestigious National Jazz Festival. The other schools there had all kinds of advantages—more students, more support, more money.

“I went and watched all these different bands from Princeton, New Jersey, and Manhattan, and all these places,” Weston recalls. “I said this is just amazing, the level of music is amazing. And I said we’ll just do the best we can, just do our thing.”

An intimidating atmosphere? It certainly was to Nate Tardiff.

“I was shaking a lot,” Tardiff said. “It was like at some points after I played a chord, I looked down and I was shaking.”

When this national competition ended, the four musicians—not one of whom can read music—from a school with 87 students on the far edge of Maine, had finished second. Take that, Manhattan.

“Robert Sanchez won’t take the credit for that,” Shead High School Principal Paul Theriault said of the quartet’s director and arranger. “But, boy, he is just an amazing, amazing person.”

http://www...23-d8cd-4ecd-b8da-d4b66ead3b9d
murder
Member
Thu May 25 11:12:21

patom: Do any of them belong to you?

If so, congratulations! :o)

williamthebastard
Member
Thu May 25 14:48:10
Anyway, a little 25 y o malt, a little bonnie and a little jamming on the old telecaster makes my thursday a worthwhile one. Cheers!

http://vocaroo.com/14h6qpYTiFBm
patom
Member
Thu May 25 17:34:02
murder, nope none of them are mine. I used to haul pulp paper down there back in the late 80's and then a couple of years after I retired until we sold our house on the lake and moved near Bangor.
My wife was born in Eastport. She was raised in Canada. When her mother was ready to have her they lived on Campobello Island. She was having difficulty and they put them on a fishing boat to take her to a Canadian Hospital but it broke down in Passamaquoddy Bay and was towed into Eastport. Therefore she is an accidental American.
Eastport is also the deepest water seaport east of Mexico. Tides run 25 to 30 feet.
Neat little town.
show deleted posts

Your Name:
Your Password:
Your Message:
Bookmark and Share