The Jazz Band held its inaugural Jazz Cafe May 4 in the cafeteria which featured performers from Jazz band, chorus and other solo performers, offering the musicians a chance to perform with each other outside of their regular concert performances.

The Jazz Band performed a total of 20 pieces and featured several vocal soloists, including sophomore Luke Marple, senior Valerie Levy and sophomore Ellie Geddes.  Performing so many songs demanded a lot of endurance from the musicians.

“It’s a lot of playing,” band director Nicole Sherlock said. “Conditioning [the wind players] to be ready for that, there’s not much you can do.”

Apart from playing for nearly an hour straight, the band also had to divide its attention as it practiced all week because they performed at multiple events the past two weeks.

“We’ve had three performances in the past couple weeks,” Sherlock said. “Tuesday night we played at the superintendent’s dinner, and then we had a concert two weeks ago.”

While the jazz band performed many numbers they rehearse and perform regularly, they also included some original pieces to the event.

“We’ve been practicing these songs ever since last concert and we practice every day in class, but some songs for instance [“What a Wonderful World”] had been very last minute,” sophomore alto saxophone player Tomer Atzili said. “The first time we saw it was [May 4].”

Despite having a feeling of underpreparedness, the musicians still felt they played well. “It actually went even better than I wanted. I think most of our pieces turned out great,” Atzili said.

Currently, there are already plans to have another Jazz Cafe next year, and although an official date hasn’t been set, viewers are likely to see another entertaining performance.

“The Jazz Cafe was an interesting idea that definitely got people’s attention,” sophomore Kristina Mobley said. “The Jazz Band performed really well and it was a nice change to see them perform outside of a normal concert setup.”