Experiments in Jazz at Boyertown High School

So I saw this bear in one of seemingly 100
lobbies at Boyertown Area Senior High School.
He was a little dusty, no doubt due to the
construction project there,
so I named him 'Dusty.'

So it wasn't the music that was experimental last night, it was my video technique.

I recorded the first couple of performances at the Jazz at B-Town affair as I always do, on the iPhone.

And I have always regretted that the phone does not have the capacity to record all the performances.

I try to restrict myself to those in The Mercury coverage area.

Also, since uploading to YouTube takes a ton of time, I would not sleep after a performance even if I could record them all.

But after I got the Boyertown Elementary Jazz Band (yes, both performances) and Pottstown High School, it occurred to me to use the live-video streaming app called Periscope.

So I did one and although I did not save it to my phone, I found that if you click the link on the Storify down below, you can still see a video and audio of the band.

The Boyertown Elementary Jazz Band
entertained us during intermission.

It took me a few turns to get the hang of it and (sorry Mr. Langdon), I failed to save one of the Boyertown performances and one of them is sideways, because I wanted to see if YouTube would fix it. It didn't.

But we're learning, we're learning.

The upside of using Periscope is, people who can't make the show can watch it live and because the video is lower quality, it uploads to YouTube super quick.

The downside is the video is not so hot. But since you go to a Jazz band

Pottstown High School Jazz Band was the only local
band competing Saturday. As hosts, Boyertown played
in exhibition only.

performance mostly to hear the music, that should be OK.

Let me know what you think about the lower quality video, but perfectly adequate audio.

I did not make it to the first half of the event, which featured performances by Pottstown, Spring-ford and Pottsgrove middle school jazz bands. I do not know the results of those. If anyone does, send them along to me and I will update this post.

Now for the high school jazz band results:

Time for the awards!

North Penn received an "Outstanding rating; Easton a "Superior;" Quakertown's HJoe's Jazz Cafe received an "Outstanding;" Pottstown received an "Outstanding;" Quakertown received a "Superior" and North Penn Navy Jazz

Pottstown's Chloe Francis with her
soloist award.

Band also received a "Superior."

Best Trumpet Section: Quakertown;
Best Trombone Section: North Penn;
Best Woodwind Section: North Penn;
Best Rhythm Section: Quakertown.

Unfortunately, the program at Jazz at B-Town does not list the songs or the soloists, or even the songs frankly, so I would only be guessing if I tried to name who won the soloist awards from the other schools.

But I certainly know how to spell the name Chloe Francis, a senior trumpet player who received a soloist award.

The evening wound up with a four-song performance by the Sounds of Sunnybrook Dance Band that was, as always, awesome and featured a solo by Boyertown Band Director Brian Langdon.

Those videos are down below as well.

That's the scoop as I know it at 1 a.m.

Anyway, here are the Tweets and video. Again, like last time, I embedded the performances I loaded up to YouTube in Storify, because it makes it easier.