Band is ‘Essentially Ellington’

Third trip for River East’s jazz band

River East Collegiate’s jazz band is doing what no school in Canada has done, and they’re doing it for the third time in May.

Under the guidance of Jeff Kula, who has headed the program for nine years, the school’s top jazz musicians, about 20 of them, are going to New York to participate in the 12th annual Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival.

To Clay Ridd, tenor saxophone, “it’s like winning the lottery of jazz.”

“Except we worked for it,” bassist Graham Isaka added.

A handful of Canadian schools have auditioned for the festival for a chance to workshop with the world’s best jazz players and compete against other schools, but only Kula’s crew has made the cut, Dana Barden, the festival’s spokesperson said.

The festival sent out audition packages to schools, which included music for five Duke Ellington songs.

Bands had to send in a tape with their renditions of three of them and the best got their invites in February.

Of the 88 schools across North America that auditioned, only 15 got accepted. Kula, however, doesn’t want to take credit for this feat.

“It’s always the kids willing to work so hard. We got a great bunch of students and I’m lucky to be here and go along with the ride,” the drummer for local band Pop The Trunk said.

“I just feel fortunate myself to have a chance to work with these kids because they’re some pretty talented kids.”

“We just try to give opportunity and encourage them to strive for the best they can do and stretch them as much as possible and let it go from there,” he added.

But students are not willing to let him avoid accolades.

Sam Chrol, who plays an enchanting clarinet and alto saxophone, has tried to make the festival for the past three years, and was thrilled to finally get her chance to go in her graduating year.

But she gave credit to Kula, saying he “knows what he wants and he knows how to get it.”

Indeed, listening to the band practice the three songs they will perform – Jumpin’ Punkins, Mood Indigo, and C Jam Blues – the only songs they’ve rehearsed all year and the ones they will play at the show, Kula constantly stops them to ask for excellence.

Rare is the case the band plays for more than eight consecutive seconds without Kula asking for a sharper note or a vivacious vibrato or a more dramatic transition.

But this willingness to banish anything mediocre from his musical room is what attracts the best students.

“He’s the reason I came to this school. He’s got good sounding bands,” said Isaka, who recently won the prestigious Jimmy King Memorial Scholarship for jazz.

“I admire him more than anyone else.”