Jazz band plays for Harford County principals; Creating musical meeting

Opportunities for live performances have been limited in recent years, however, the NH Jazz band was one of 2 groups to perform at the most recent principals’ meeting hosted by the superintendent on March 25 in Abingdon, Md.

  The meeting featured the Havre de Grace high school’s jazz band in the morning, and the Hawks in the afternoon.  60 people were in attendance at the meeting.

    NH band director John Wojciechowski said the groups were asked to perform “background music” because organizers wanted to add “more of an element to it.”  

     Since the NH jazz band consists of 8 people “it allows us to play a lot of different styles of music,” Wojciechowski said. This gives the students opportunities to play solos in pieces “and improvisation.”

     Trombone player and senior Jonny Roth said, “there was a little pressure being the first time in that situation but once we were in the middle [of the performance] it was just like how we play every day.” 

     The performance was one of many for the jazz band but Roth said it made him feel “pretty professional” playing in front of all the principals. Roth has been playing for nine years.  He said he joined the jazz band in the middle of his sophomore year. Their bassist and senior Grace Herron could not make it to the performance but they had a pianist that helped out in place of it.

    Senior Tim Steele plays the drums and has been playing since fourth grade and said “it was like playing for anyone else.”  His favorite song was called “Caravan.” 

     Twelfth grader Griffin Harrington plays guitar for the band and has been a part of the band for two years. Harrington thought it “was really cool because it was the first opportunity we had to improvise and solo in front of people.”  He added it was the band’s first performance like that since December. 

     The band played about 10 songs at the meeting. Harrington;s favorite to play was “Footprints- it’s a waltz where I get to improvise and play off our drummer and bassist.”