CIJF: day 2

[damont]

Second (and final) day of the Chantilly Invitational Jazz Festival. I staggered into the school much too early in the morning. Most of what I did for the next 12 hours was pretty repetitive: rearrange chairs, stands, large instruments, and microphones from one band to the next, according to the seating chart provided (plus adjustments made on the fly).

Some observations from backstage:

• Seating charts are rarely accurate in their entirety. I'm used to it by now.
• Hardly anyone tells us if the piano player wants to use the acoustic piano (provided) or an electric one they brought, in which case we have to de-mike the baby grand and move it out of the way. And when they're using the baby grand, of course each pianist wants it oriented differently.
• Westfield High School's jazz band is huge enough in its normal configuration. Was there really a point to playing "Malaguena" which requires three extra saxophones, a tuba, and four mellophones?
• Alan Baylock's band kicks serious butt, and the musicians therein are very nice to us techies.

In the end, the finalists were Westfield HS; Walt Whitman HS (from Bethesda MD); and Albemarle HS (from Charlottesville VA). In the finals, Whitman took first place for the fifth or sixth straight year, with Albemarle second and Westfield third. Afterwards, we cleared all the chairs and stands off the stage and back to the band room, with the help of several students. Another band parent was assigned to cleaning up all the schedules I had posted in the various rooms we were using; that parent swears she's never letting me near another roll of tape ever again. (Hey, I was trying to make sure they wouldn't fall down. 6 small pieces of tape. Shouldn't have been difficult!) Things moved fast enough that wse were out of the school around 9 pm Saturday night.

Comments

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Each schedule was TWO sheets of paper. I doubled up the top corners of sheet 2 with the bottom corners of sheet 1, dropping the pieces of tape needed from 8 to 6.