Jazz is many things and it, like any art form, takes on a character all it’s own for each one of us. It’s American; it’s a part of the culture of just who we are. Its art and its entertainment or it’s someone we know or it’s a legend we’ve come to love, or it may be a place to go when we just need some coffee and a melody.

I remember walking the halls of the University of North Texas as a musician in my 20’s and I can still hear the sounds of a wailing jazz sax solo set against the drive of an upright bass and the punctuating rhythm of the drum kit. I can still see the look in the eye of the musicians on the pianos or the guitars slapping vamp and fill, just waiting to take their solo and push that boundary just a little bit further to the ‘outside’.

That was then and this is now and the more things change the more they stay the same. Just as it was then, UNT is still one of the premiere music schools in the country. For the jazz student, the One O’clock Lab Band is at the top. It’s where the A-list players are and it’s where they all want to be.

As the lights drew down in the theater, the band filtered out to their chairs onstage and began warming up. It was an inauspicious beginning to what would become a monster performance by some of the most gifted, accomplished jazz musicians you’ll hear anywhere.

A former band member himself, the Grammy-nominated composer/arranger Steve Wiest had the enviable position of conductor this evening and led a stunning performance lasting well over 2 hours of Big Band Jazz Music. Most of the music was from the August CD release ‘Lab 2010 Montage’ and included a Steve Wiest composition called New Cydonia and a Fred Sturm arrangement of Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic.

Stellar solos by individual band members highlighted the evening with the audience enthusiastically applauding each one. As the night wound on, the tapestry of timeless compositions (drawn from the more than 6000 big band arrangements in the school’s Jazz Studies Music Library) entertained the enthralled audience with a practiced skill and a relentless accuracy.

Two encores and three standing ovations later Steve and the band put the instruments down and informally met and talked with members of the audience until we had our fill. The band has always had the sort of unspoken task of crusading for music education in our schools and is eager to speak to the benefits of it any time they get the chance. If there has ever been a more gracious group of musicians in the Crighton I don’t know about it. As I walked the theater making photos for this article I saw that more than a few of our students were inspired…yup, there was the same keen eye and the same anticipation of jumping in and pushing that musical boundary a little further ‘outside’.

Things quieted down a little as the crowd filtered out and since the stage crew was beginning to pack up for the evening, I returned backstage to pack my camera away for the evening too. As I was packing, I was listening to one of the trombone players playing his instrument quietly in one of the side dressing rooms. When one of his friends discovered him and asked what he was doing, I heard him say “I got tired and couldn’t hold that high A so I’m practicing to make sure THAT doesn’t happen again man.”

Does it get any better’n this? Some of the best jazz music ever written, played by some of the best players around in one of the coolest music venues of it’s kind anywhere in the country? The Crighton Foundation knocked one outa the park this time! Nice job!