Jazz Band Story:
The Warren band is a well-known part of our school and community, playing at football game halftime shows and leading the homecoming parade. One of the lesser-known parts of the band department is the jazz program, which includes three groups: Jazz Lab, Jazz Ensemble, and Jazz Workshop. These bands perform concerts in the Black Box Theater in the Almond campus, as well as traveling to regional jazz festivals every spring.
The schedule for jazz members, particularly freshmen and sophomores, is unique to all other students. They meet every morning at 7:25 a.m. at the Almond campus, then travel to O’Plaine for their regular classes. Despite the early mornings and extra commute, the students make the trip all year out of their passion for music and their desire to keep learning as musicians.
The jazz bands attend several festivals each year, including ones that feature schools from our area like Buffalo Grove and Mundelein. The highlight of the festival season, however, is the New Trier Jazz Festival. It brings together some of the most talented high school musicians in the Chicagoland area, and Grammy-winning artists attend to give students personal feedback on their performances. On February 7th, Warren’s jazz bands had the opportunity to attend this prestigious event.
New Trier is a well-resourced school, and it showed — the campus has three full theaters, all of which were used throughout the day. Between performances, students could also take part in clinics, workshops, and jam sessions, making it an educational experience on top of a competitive one.
To close out the festival, all participating bands were invited to watch a professional evening performance. This year’s featured act was the Roy Hargrove Big Band, whose set was both entertaining and inspiring. It was a fitting end to what was, by all accounts, a memorable day for Warren’s jazz program.
A special thanks to Mr.Tribley , our director, for guiding the jazz bands through another great festival season. His insights and leadership make experiences like these possible, and the students are lucky to have him and all that he has done for the Jazz program at Warren. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr.Tribely, and really getting to know what drives him to continued excellence in the jazz program. When asked about what his biggest inspiration was for getting into the music world, he described how it was the perfect medium for 2 of the things he loved the most, “I realized that I could help people by being a teacher, but also stay in music”. In many ways music really has allowed me and many others to really find our passions and ways of expressing ourselves.
Next time you have a free night, or just want something to cure your boredom and spark your interest, stop by the black box theater at the almond campus, and enjoy everything that is the warren jazz program has to offer!
