JAZZ
In a fabulous year of jazz, the concert series hit all the right notes, bringing joy to musicians and audiences alike.
This year, the Music department have excellently arranged lots of wonderful jazz events, from mass performances to a cool jazz club to charity vocal concerts. The range has been amazing.
In December came the annual classic, Crash into Christmas. It was a fantastic experience to play in and watch, and it is always a favourite with students and teachers. This included the Big Band, Crash Choir and some smaller ensembles. In the Lent term, we had Music Around the World, a fundraising concert which gave us songs in languages such as Tagalog, Japanese and Kazakh. In February, the Sixth Form had their yearly trip to Ronnie Scott’ s Jazz Club in London. Twenty students went along to the world-famous venue to watch legendary saxophonist Bill Evans perform. It was an awesome chance to see top-level jazz live, and a few students even got to meet Bill afterwards.
However, the main event of the jazz year was Sevenoaks Swings in the Lent term, a large-scale jazz concert that was especially good this year. The first act was the Big Band playing numbers like‘ Play That Funky Music’, with Alfie Beston( Upper Sixth) as the solo saxophonist, and‘ American Patrol’. Next was the Pastorius Ensemble, who were joined by
48 MUSIC REVIEW