Welcome to the Jackson Memorial Jazz Ensemble Page!

Well, the time has come to start working on the 2023-2024 Jazz Season!

We are very excited to bring back the JMHS Jazz Ensemble in full force and have a full season in front of us this school year.   Rehearsals will be held in the Band Room and we will first work towards the winter band concert. 

We would like to start this process with LIVE and IN PERSON Auditions, two weeks from Thursday (on Thursday, November 2nd).  Auditions will be held in Mr. Diaz's Office from 2pm through 5:30pm.  Please make sure you take time to read all below information, along with the "Audition Materials" tab to the left before starting your practice process.  It wouldn't hurt to reach out to other previous members of the Jazz Ensemble to truly and completely understand what the audition process is like.  

Best of Luck and we look forward to hearing all of your audition materials!

Please click on the Audition Tab to the Left to access information needed to have the most successful audition possible.  

Some tips about the Audition:

- Please ask questions!  They can not be asked to Mr. Diaz, Mr. Ficarra, or any other person who is involved in the audition.

- Please make sure you come prepared for the audition.  Looking at the music the night before is not considered prepared.  You are going to have to take 30 minutes every night and look through the materials. 

- Please make sure you practice the ballad (Real Book excerpt) with the provided recording.  You will have to play this selection with the backtrack in the audition.    

- Yes, you do need to know ALL of your major scales.  Please see the comment above (learning them the night before...)

- To understand the Jazz Language, you need to listen to Jazz.  There are some great FREE Jazz Listening stations including www.wrti.org.  You can listen to Jazz 24 hours a day for free!   If you have satellite radio, the Jazz station is Channel 67.  

Most importantly, we encourage as many students to audition as possible.  It will be a great experience in the audition process and to really hear what you sound like.  We look forward to this process and...

GOOD LUCK!