Would You Like Some Jazz With Those Pancakes?

A panoramic photo of the Pottstown Middle School 7th-8th Grade Jazz Band playing to a packed cafeteria at Pottstown High School Saturday at the 1st-Ever Jazz and Pancake Breakfast fundraiser.

There was facepainting too.

In some places, you have to sing for your supper, but here in Pottstown we do it a little differently;, sometimes you have to "perform for your pancakes."

That's what Pottstown student jazz musicians did Saturday with the high school and two middle school jazz bands all performing for a capacity breakfast crowd at the Pottstown High School cafeteria.

The occasion was the first-ever Pancake and Jazz Breakfast fundraiser hosted by the Pottstown Schools Music Association,

The breakfast was in place of the Jazz Spaghetti dinner the PSMA held for the past two years as a way of trying something different.

(It also meant all the instruments and sound equipment did not have to be transported across town to the Good Will Firehouse.)

We had so many people that we had to run out and get more pancake mix, after we served up more than 1,000 pancakes and people still wanted more.

"The Gentlemen" are, from left, Casey Mest, Gary Overholtzer

and Kyle Kratzer.

No word yet on how much was raised to help pay for all those other costs music education incurs that
is all too often not in the school budget.

What we can say was that once again, the word was spread about the quality and vitality of the district's music education program.

Perhaps some of the best evidence of that was a somewhat impromptu performance by "The Gentlemen," a three-man high school jazz band spin-off comprised of baritone saxophonist Casey Mest, guitarist Gary Overholtzer and trombonist Kyle Kratzer.

Two Pottstown teachers who help instill that love of

music, Nancy Mest and Ben Hayes with two likely

future musicians.

So enamored are they of playing music that they even do it on the side, presenting a surprising and spot-in interpretation of a Green Day tune and another by Trombone Shorty.

And anyone who heard the two middle school jazz bands perform can tell how that love of music, and the desire and ability to play it well, is fomented.

Both those bands rocked the house and kept people in the hard seats of the high school cafeteria.

But don't take my word for it, troll down through the Tweets and photos below and listen to the limited videos my iPhone battery allowed me to shoot and judge for yourselves.

These kids have got swing.