By:Al Wicklund
MONROE — The Applegarth Middle School Jazz Band filled the Woodland School gymnasium with up-tempo music Tuesday.
The band gave an audience of elementary-school musicians, seated on the gym floor, an idea of what awaits them when they enter seventh grade.
The concert, given by some 20 Applegarth seventh- and eighth-graders, is one of two low-key recruiting performances for music teacher Alan Bosoy and his jazz band. The other performance is at Brookside School. The two dates give Mr. Bosoy the opportunity to introduce his program to the sixth graders who will enter Applegarth School in the fall.
Mr. Bosoy told his audience the key to jazz is creative self-expression within the framework of the musical scale.
He said a jazz musician doesn’t want to play a piece of music the same way someone else has.
“When someone else has played it, it’s been done. The next one to play it will improvise within the scale,” Mr. Bosoy said.
The Applegarth music teacher had an audience already sold on the freedom and beauty of jazz.
Woodland’s Darren Goldberg, a 12-year-old trombonist in his third year of playing at the elementary school, enjoys jazz because “I like the upbeat music and I enjoy doing improvisations.”
A musical colleague of Darren’s, trumpet player Bryan Bailey, 12, explained why jazz interested him.
“The pace is more lively than that of other music we have worked with. I plan to continue playing at Applegarth. The music is fun,” Bryan said.
Jazz also got a thumbs-up from Mr. Bosoy’s current crop of band members.
“I expect that I’ll be playing jazz through my high-school years,” said Scott Kaufman, a seventh grader.
Matt Grysko, a trumpet player in eighth grade, said he likes jazz “because it’s more intricate than most music we play.” Carlee Potochak, an eighth-grade alto saxophonist said, “I like jazz because it doesn’t have to be played as it’s written. It’s more interesting.”
Mr. Bosoy, also played some trumpet solos with his laptop computer providing the backup band instruments.
“I like using the laptop with students who are practicing solos. It’s controlled to the point where everyone had the same backup music,” he said.
