Forest Arts Music Hub

Jazz Combo Year Review 22/23

It’s been another very positive year for the WMEHS Jazz Combo, with performances and activities taking place in Walsall, Birmingham, Lichfield, Brownhills and Burntwood.  22/23 has been the second year the Combo has been running ‘in-person’, since originally forming with split-screen recordings during the lockdown period. 

The Jazz Combo features some of the finest young jazz musicians involved with the WMEHS, and is led by music educator and jazz musician Nick Dewhurst, who plays bass guitar with the combo.  The students involved perform on Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Trumpet, Trombone, Piano and Drums.  There have also been guest appearances from local professional jazz musicians including Guitarist Tom Morgan and Pianist Tim Amann.  Since September, the students have learnt a selection of jazz standards and original compositions, which they then performed throughout the year.  These pieces have enabled the students to work on their small group ensemble playing, as well as improvisation and ear training.  

Many of the students involved with the Jazz Combo are also involved with either the Jazz at 6 Big Band, or the Jazz Improvisation Class, both of which are regular ensembles which rehearse as part of the WMEHS Tuesday Evening Music Centre.  

Similarly to last year, the Jazz Combo has also provided an excellent opportunity for the WMEHS to develop its own new partnerships, and this has included developing links with a number of musical venues and institutions within the local region.  The first of these new partnerships was made with the Jazz Combos first outing of the year, to visit a rehearsal of the Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra (commonly known as MYJO).  MYJO has recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, and is still widely recognised as one of the elite youth jazz ensembles not only in the Midlands, but in the UK too.  Many young musicians that have attended MYJO have gone on to have careers within music, and so it seemed very appropriate to take our young jazz students to both join in with ‘MYJO Too’ - the training band for MYJO, as well as then listening, and joining in on some tunes, with MYJO 1.  It was a brilliant experience for our young musicians to see the progression they can make, and to hear the sound of a full bigband of (slightly older) young musicians (up to the age limit of 25).  The quality of ensemble playing, the sound and presence of the band was incredible, and certainly gave our Combo students something to aspire to!  

Following on from an inspiring visit to MYJO, the Jazz Combo’s first gig of the year was at the New Art Gallery in Walsall.  The combo provided background jazz and entertainment services to the delegates of the annual ‘Christmas Tea Party’, hosted by the Walsall Cultural Education Partnership.  This was a ‘repeat’ gig for the Jazz Combo, as we had kindly been invited back after performing for the same event in the previous year.  We played a selection of our repertoire, including some Christmas tunes too, of course! 

New for 22/23, the Jazz Combo then visited Lichfield for another performance just before Christmas.  This time it was to play as part of the Lichfield Jazz Christmas Special.  The students entertained the audience for 30 minutes, before then having the opportunity to watch the Lichfield Jazz Big Band perform.  The LJBB is made up of 16 of the finest jazz musicians based in the Midlands, and so it was great experience for our students to watch and listen to these fabulous professional musicians.  

After Christmas, the Jazz Combo started to change its personnel slightly, and some younger ‘Next  Generation’ musicians were more involved.  Some of the students that were regularly involved with the Jazz Improvisation classes were invited to perform as the ‘Jazz Improvisation Class’ at the Spring Music Centre concerts, held at Walsall Arena and Arts Centre.  Really, this was the ‘Next Generation’ Jazz Combo in disguise, but it was a brilliant way to introduce the younger students to performing in front of friends and family at an internal event.  Up to this point, we had had friends of the WMEHS help us out with piano and guitar, but this was the first time we were able to have the harmony provided by two of our jazz piano students. 

Later in the year, the Jazz Combo did a ‘Quintet Video Recording’, (see recording on YouTube below). This was as part of our Music Centre recordings which took place during this academic year.  It was a good experience for the students to have to perform several takes of the same piece, each time improving the performance and refining it to sound better.  

In the Summer Term, the Jazz Combo was then involved with three performances, in Burntwood, Walsall and Brownhills.

At the start of June, the Jazz Combo, along with the Jazz @ 6 Big Band were invited to perform as part of the Lichfield Blues & Jazz Festival.  The groups had their own evening concert to showcase their music, and it was held at St Anne’s Church in Chasetown, Burntwood.  There was a large audience, and the music sounded fabulous in the acoustic of the church.  The Jazz Combo impressed the audience with the improvisation and small group playing, and the Big Band wowed the audience with the sound of all the brass and woodwind filling the church with sound! This was a real highlight for the WMEHS Jazz Department this year, and the wider ‘Project Jazz’, and is something we’d certainly like to repeat in the  future.

The next performance took place at the Table Cafe in Walsall, as part of the regular jazz programme held there.  For this concert, the Combo performed two 45-minute sets which included a large selection of the repertoire which the students had been learning over the year.   

Our final concert of the year was held at the Lamp Theatre in Brownhills, which was another new venue for the Jazz Combo to perform at.  The  concert was hosted by friends of the WMEHS, the Sing Out Sister Choir.  They had kindly invited the Jazz Combo to be their guests, and we enjoyed a brilliant evening which showcased both the choir, and the jazz combo, and concluded with a joint song ‘Man I Feel Like a Woman’, that featured both groups.  

22/23 has been another fantastic year for the WMEHS Jazz Combo, and was the second full year out of lockdown for the band.  It was a year in which the final original members of the very first Jazz Combo left the group, and as a result the next generation of young jazz musicians has been introduced, meaning the Jazz Combo will be on approximately ‘Version 3’ as we head into the next academic year.

Once again, the programme of events this year has included a wide variety of external performance opportunities, and has allowed our young musicians to both listen to and meet the slightly older musicians of MYJO, as well as professional jazz musicians from the Midlands.  

Next year, the Jazz Combo will be back, and we’re looking forward to continuing to build on our partnerships with MYJO, Lichfield Arts, the Table Cafe, and many more wonderful local musical institutions.