Walking into school on one of the many repetitive Fridays that blend into one another while students are still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. You’re then met with the unexpected melodious sound of jazz combo playing away at their instruments whilst students gather around to hear the Mellifluent music, when you see a friend of yours whom you decided to go stand by and spend the rest of the morning before class starts, listening to the sounds together to start the day off on a positive note.

FHC’s jazz combo is a small group of about 4-6 musicians, typically students pulled from the jazz ensemble, that plays in front of the school on Friday mornings. Senior Elise Scott, one of the leaders of jazz combo, does a lot just in preparation for Friday morning shows.

“It’s usually mandatory for us to have a rehearsal that same week to be able to perform so that we don’t mess up in front of everyone. We rehearse on Wednesdays, after school. We rehearse for an hour to run through songs, put together forms, and decide what we’re gonna do for next Friday. On Friday mornings, I leave my house at 6 a.m, 

I get here at 6:15; I usually show up around the time Mr. Griffin gets here and after, I set up electronics. Then the rest of the combo is supposed to show up at 6:27, so that we can get the drum set and all the instruments down there, warm up a little bit, decide what we’re gonna do, and then we start performing at 6: 50 when the door’s open,” said Scott.

Many things go on behind the scenes to make jazz combo flow smoothly, and most of it is student-driven. Jazz combo is smaller than the ensemble, allowing for each student in their designated section a chance to fully shine without worry of being overshadowed or tuned out. Scott enjoys the student-led atmosphere of the jazz combo because it also helps her grow as a musician.

“It’s entirely student-led. So the directors, we can ask them questions, but we decide who’s gonna be in it. We decide when we perform, we decide what we perform, and we decide how we’re gonna do it. We make our own call times, and we relay the information to the directors so they can tell the administration when we’re actually gonna be performing. For every fun song [performed], like the songs that people recognize as teenagers, we have to have a jazz standard, so that’s why you’ll hear a mix of songs you don’t really know because this is still a learning experience for us in jazz itself.” Said Scott

There are times when the jazz combo is performing, and they have to wing a section of what they’re playing, according to senior Alex Tarleton, it’s actually more common than not that a member has to improvise, leaving a lot of their music up to interpretation.

“We improvise almost every single song.I don’t always do it, but everybody does at some point in time for each song. I have not been very good at improv until I joined combo, because just getting reps of doing that over and over again really helps me learn,” said Tarleton.

Due to jazz combo starting Fridays on such a positive note, it allows for students to wind down for the upcoming weekend by breaking the silence of routines with melodic energy. Senior Sirr Julian Rodriguez, who co-leads with Scott, hopes that, at the very least, these Friday performances give students something to look forward to at the end of the week.

“I hope that it just gives us something to look forward to on Fridays when they’re coming to school, and I also think that it can inspire some younger musicians, to,” said Rodriguez, “Jazz has been a really big part of my life, especially the last couple of years. It’s actually the major I want to go into. So any chance that I get to play in front of people, I love.”

Sometimes people take for granted how nerve-racking it can be to play in front of a huge audience, although the Jazz combo members are affiliated with other band groups, they too get nervous when performing. Rodriguez believes that most students who perform don’t stop getting nervous; they just get better at performing with it.

“There’s always a degree of nervousness anytime I play, but it’s definitely gone down, the more comfortable I’ve gotten, and the better I’ve gotten. So nowadays, it’s not as much nervousness, just kind of getting through it,” said Rodriguez.