Spriggs Road Jazz Performs with Army Blues and Country Current

Some of the best jazz in town can be enjoyed for free courtesy of Spriggs Road Jazz, an award-winning ensemble comprised of student musicians from Saunders Middle School, Hylton High School, and Forest Park High School. To highlight March as Music in Our Schools month, these young musicians will be hosting and performing with two of the nation’s most popular military bands. The group will play first with the U.S. Army “Blues” Jazz Ensemble on March 14 and then again with the U.S. Navy Band’s famed “Country Current” on March 28. Both shows will share a love of jazz while also showcasing the talents that have been enriched by the Prince William County Schools music program.

Sprigg Roads’ talented artists have earned a reputation for enthusiastic and exceptionally mature performances of America’s quintessential classical, swing, and jazz music. Their repertoire gives particular emphasis to the Duke Ellington and Count Basie canon of big band literature, which blends well with the group’s youthful energy and spirit.

Although participation in the band is considered to be an extracurricular activity, Spriggs Road Jazz provides students with a continuum in the development of the technical and artistic skills needed to play jazz. The group’s musicians also develop an insight and understanding of the cultural and historical circumstances that surround the uniquely American art form of jazz music.

“Jazz musicians, by the nature and demands of the music, have a better-than-average sense of time and rhythm, and tend to have a more detailed and thorough understanding of how music ‘works’ from the inside-out,” says Bryan Kidd, director of Spriggs Road Jazz and retired chief composer-arranger for the U.S. Navy Band. Kidd goes on to explain that having students study both symphonic and jazz playing styles makes for a more “complete” musician. “As the famous trumpet player Wynton Marsalis observed, if you can play Count Basie and Duke Ellington, you can play anything,” says Kidd.

Spriggs Road performs a variety of community concerts each year and has received invitations to perform at the East Coast Jazz Festival and on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. The highlight for the group is their annual Jazz Night, this year scheduled for June 3, where the ensembles play in a club-like setting with noted jazz musicians appearing as guest artists.

Be it locally or regionally, Spriggs Road Jazz continues to make a name for itself as a seasoned group of young musicians. According to Kidd, professional artists who have worked with the group have consistently commented on the high level of musicianship they witness in the ensemble’s students. “They say they sound like the real deal,” says Kidd.

Both of the March shows will be hosted at Forest Park High School, 15721 Forest Park Drive in Woodbridge. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the concerts beginning at 7:30. Both concerts are free and open to the public.

To learn more, visit the Spriggs Road Jazz Web site at http://kiddsjazz.tripod.com/jazz.

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