Students may know the ETHS Jazz Band from their Friday morning concerts in the Main Lobby, but those are only a few of the showings put on by the group. Their Feb. 27 performance, dubbed the Jazz Combo Concert, was different in a few ways, from the structure of the concert to the unexpected fire alarm mid-performance.

“Instead of having one performance for combos [little jazz bands] and one for the big bands, we did one concert for the lower four combos and the lab, plus Jazz 2 bands, and then one performance for the top three combos and the top jazz ensemble,” said junior Imogen Eyler, a trumpet player and vocalist. “It was also unusual during the latter performance when the tornado alarm went off so we had to spend 40 minutes in the arts wing hallway, but that part wasn’t planned.”

The students in the band often meet and practice on their own time, working to perfect whichever piece of music they find themselves working on. The band members even take pieces and tweak the music to modernize it or add a personal flair. 

“[One of our players] arranged this piece called Caldonia. That’s a Woody Hermon chart that we had to find, and then he modernized it. That’s how we started the concert, and the students loved that one,” said Band Director Mattew Bufis. “Without me being on the stage it’s like they took it over. Not only because they were performing it on their own, but because one of the students arranged it and put his own thumbprint on it, which is cool.”

The next performance is the Jazz Big Band Concert on April 23, and the players look forward to practicing their new music in preparation. The band also plans to continue their Friday morning performances, and play occasionally in gigs scheduled at Evanston SPACE and Hackney’s.