Roosevelt Vocal Jazz Shines Brightly

Alex Mountsier took the top prize, and Maya Hunter received special mention as four of our top singers were honored as semi-finalists in the Seattle-Kobe Female Jazz Vocalist Audition.

Along with Alex and Maya, Celeste Yglesias and Eliana Colachis rounded out the quartet who grabbed four of the six finalist spots, performing at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley on Monday, March 9.

The competition is sponsored by the Seattle-Kobe Sister City Association, which selected Alex and one adult female jazz vocalist (Taylor Zickefoose) from the greater Seattle area to travel to Kobe, Japan to perform at the Kobe Jazz Queen Vocalist Contest on May 9th, 2015.

More info on the contest here

Roosevelt Jazz Band Returns to Essentially Ellington!

The Roosevelt Jazz Band was named as one of the finalists in the prestigious Essentially Ellington Festival, held May 7-8 in New York. This will be the 16th time in 17 years that Roosevelt has received this honor.

Two other schools from our region, Mount Si and Garfield will also be competing this year (the same lineup as last year).

Essentially Ellington is presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center, the jazz nonprofit headed by Wynton Marsalis.

Check out the Seattle Times coverage of the news!

More information about Essentially Ellington

Support Roosevelt Jazz by Buying Groceries: Try eScrip!

We have a new and incredibly simple opportunity to raise ongoing money for the Booster program: The "Safeway eScrip" is a great fundraiser for Roosevelt Jazz primarily because  - for those of you who already shop at Safeway - it's not asking you to do anything different than you already.

Here's how it works-

Simply register your existing Safeway card with eScrip. Then shop as you normally would at Safeway. That's it!

CLICK HERE to download an info sheet 

Find out more about ways eScrip can help RHS Jazz:

Join us for our end of year Jazz concerts!

Jazz Bands II & III Wed. June 11
Vocal Jazz Thurs June 12
Jazz Band I Friday June 13
All shows 7:30PM in the RHS Performing Arts Center

Congratulations to JB1's Noah Halpern

Roosevelt Jazz trumpet player Noah Halpern is the only high school jazz musician in Washington State accepted into the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next-Generation Jazz Orchestra.  Noah will spend two weeks touring Japan this summer with the band before they perform again this fall at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

JB2 Pianist Leo Folsom Wins Downbeat Magazine Composition Award

Our own Leo Folsom has received an award from Downbeat Magazine, for Original Composition for Small Ensemble, high school division.  Leo was one of three composers honored. Not bad for a sophomore!

The Downbeat submission audio track features Noah Halpern and Dylan Collins on trumpet, Tyler Evans and Porter Jones on trombone, and Leo Folsom on piano. Original composition by Leo Folsom.  Category: original composition for small combo.  (MP3 file here) 

 

Congrats, Leo!

Essentially Ellington Individual Honors

The band is back from New York, where we heard (and created!) some incredible performances at JALC. We didn't make the top three this time, but many of our musicians came away with individual and section honors as outstanding players:
Bass: Will Langlie-Miletich
Guitar: Peter Stoessel
Drums Honorable Mention: Luke Woodle
Alto saxophone: Anna Dolde
Tenor saxophone: Santosh Sharma, Jesse Beckett-Herbert and Taka Olds
Trumpet: Jeffrey Gustaveson
Trumpet Honorable Mention: John Otten and Rubin Hohlbein
Trombone Honorable Mention: Porter Jones
Section: Saxophone
Thanks to everyone for supporting the band and making this incredible experience possible.