Submitted by Will Layman (Faculty Moderator)

Hey, Jazz Band!

You guys should all know that Chris Osmond and I (still in touch as the closest of friends, though he is now Chris Osmond Ph.D and lives in Chapel Hill, NC) think of you often.  That first year, practicing like revolutionaries up in The Carriage House, has made an impact on The Field School that none of us imagined.  The jazz band has gotten stronger and more established each year, involving students from 7th grade on up and spanning musical styles that start and end with jazz but include Irish music, soul, rock, avant-garde music, even classical.  We rehearse twice each week during an activity period after lunch and -- of course -- still squeeze in weekend rehearsals and night rehearsals before our big show in April every year.

There are so many things I will never forget from that first year.  I remember playing the tune "Stolen Moments" with Seth, Greg and Chris and all of us getting lost on the minor blues changes.  When I asked, "Do guys have any idea what bar we were on?" Greg replied, "Don't ask me.  I'm the BASS player."  And I can never forget working on "You Don't Know What Love Is" with Blair on vocals, turning the song into a slow burn that eventually reached a peak with Seth's amazing guitar solo.  There were a couple of songs where the esteemed Craig Farmer guested on drums, giving Chris the chance to play his clarinet, using a reed that he had not changed since high school.  Is that the year that Blair and Michelle performed a harmonized duet on “Inchworm”?  You guys had great ideas.

But of course the story that is stuck in my head is when we went down to the Friends Meeting House to play a bit and had Bennett sing "Mustang Sally" for the first time.  There's only one way to put it:  We rocked that house of worship a couple of feet off the ground.  The wooden benches were shaking and every student was clapping, and Bennett was transformed into some kind of blue-eyed wizard of R&B, even though he was probably wearing his usual jacket and tie.  It was too much for the Quakers, no doubt, and the school was told NO MORE MUSIC at assemblies.

Of course, they eventually forgave us and we returned to play more music there as the band got better, subtler, more complete.

But there was no year like the first (or the first few, anyway), when we were all still under-the-radar musicians, playing purely out of passion and fun, finding the tiny gaps in our busy days to discover that improvising and playing together and discovering the blues was about as great a thing as you can do.

I hope this message finds you all still loving music in every/any form.  I am about to leave the house now to play with my latest band at a coffee house in Silver Spring.  And then on the Wednesday and Friday afternoons I'll be playing more with your successors, kids who are just now learning to sing “My Romance” or sting a B-flat-7 chord on a Strat or an electric piano.  And just last year, guess what tune we did all over again?  "Mustang Sally."  The more things change, the more the great stuff asserts itself as forever.

Submitted by Chris Osmond (Faculty Moderator)

Well, damn.

As I was recently sharing with Blair (who, as it works out, moved to my new town with her husband last summer, and we had lunch last week – trust me, she is still exactly the same person, though verifiably married and pregnant and all growz up), I have yet to really shake the jazz ensemble.  I have been working pretty hard since I left Field in 1999, mostly learning more about education and how to talk about it even more obtusely than I used to, but the straight-up fact remains that what we used to do up in the CH lay closer to the bone of what it feels like when it's working than anything I have done, or read about, since.

So I remember really quite a bit, people:

*  I recall I had an alternate lyric set to "You Don't Know What Love Is" that pointed out "you don't know what socks are / until you learn the meaning / of the SHOES," but I don't think many remember it as fondly as I do.

*  Splendid Martin Doherty designing our sets every year, including those zapped-out silhouettes and the Blue Note CD that, I believe, still hangs in the tech booth.

*  Bennett Bullock was like David Byrne scooping Harry Potter before the latter was a Hershey bar in JK Rowling's back pocket.  That guy was a force of nature.  Where is he now?  Namibia?  The Pentagon?  Hollah back Bennett!

*  And Tyner always kept us honest, hitting our spots.  I remember his glee when we actually got pro-level work-lights back in the tech booth, but that might have been later – and of course, the annual face off between him and Spike, as they bristled at each other like two roosters.

What a blast to remember: what a singular time.  Thanks for sharing it with me.  I love you guys.

Submitted by Seth Pollack, ’95

This is so much fun.  More reminiscing!
 
I remember when Will first approached me saying that he and Chris were thinking about starting a jazz band.  He said, “I know you said that you play guitar and I don’t quite know how to ask this, but, are you any good…”  Soon we were spending our “work-internship” week in an English classroom in the new building because the theatre people were using the carriage house.  It was a real blast for those of us in the rhythm section because we played the whole time while the singers would hang out in the hall and then come in one by one when it was time for their solo.  Once the theatre people did their play and we were free to take over the carriage house and eventually we were practicing about every day.  The first concerts were “coffee house style” and we arranged the tables in the carriage house to give the feel of a jazz club.  For me, the highlight of those concerts was always the climactic finale with “Red Clay” by Freddie Hubbard when everything got just a touch louder and the subtle, intricate show we’d just put on seemed to give us carte blanche to rock out a bit.
 
I brought some of my friends by to jam with the band.  Will brought by his pal (through Spike)… John Pizzarelli.  I knew we’d “made it big” when we got asked to play at some regional teachers meeting being held at The Field School.  After that, we were staples… I could hardly imagine how they used to have Art Day without us or how they muddled through “Forever Young” at graduation day before us.  We played some amazing places outside of school as well… the most amazing was this party hosted by Blair’s family in the most amazing house overlooking the water on the Eastern shore.
 
I don’t really feel like I ever graduated from the Field jazz band.  I showed up now and then for concerts in the years after I graduated and played a couple years ago in The Field School’s new building with “The Field School All-Star Band.”  A few years ago the Field Jazz Band even played at my wedding.

Submitted by Michelle Hessel, ’97

What a great idea!

So I have to say... while Bennett and his rendition of “Mustang Sally” is definitely not the first thing I think of when I think of the jazz ensemble... I NEVER hear “Mustang Sally” without thinking of Bennett and Field :)

My 9th grade memories are fuzzy but I remember just thinking how cool it was that these teachers wanted to hang out and play music with us!  And even though eventually we did end up spending most of our time in the carriage house, I have special memories of those downstairs work internship afternoons.  Here are some memories that come to mind:

• My "Paper Moon" with the vocalize line taken from the Manhattan transfer album.
• Terah's song from the Batman (Superman?) comic.
• Singing "Teach Me Tonight" with Will – did we really sing that??!!!
• Will trying to bring the big black woman out of me (“RESPECT”) and instead bringing me to tears ;)
• The 5-part harmony we never could quite master (one musical theater degree later though - I think I could handle it!)
• The show every spring that was always different and special, and showed off everyone’s talents.
• The ORIGINAL name of the Field School Jazz Ensemble...Girls, Guys, and Cake. 
  

So there are a couple things for you.  I think it is so great that the ensemble continues and has become such an institution at Field, and that there are still singers (and musicians) at Field learning new aspects of their craft.  I have been so inspired by the music I sang with you guys.  I am really lucky that I have a job where I get to sing every day.  And on top of that, I closed a production of “Damn Yankees” yesterday (playing Lola!).  But still, nothing makes me happier than a mike and a spotlight and belting out some old standards.  Seriously.

Submitted by Greg Seiffert, ’94

I’m hearing about all these things that happened after I moved on.  I was only with the Jazz Ensemble for the last semester of my senior year, and it makes me envious to hear about all the directions it’s gone in since then.

Like several others of us, one of the things I remember is the surprise guests.  Chris Lorrain showed up wearing his bowtie and sang “One for my Baby” – he performed at our first Carriage House show.  And Craig Farmer (art history teacher) showed up one day and asked to sit in on drums.  Someone started a rumor that Craig was into AC/DC, which was funny if you knew Craig, because he didn’t look like an AC/DC fan.  I asked him though, and he confirmed that the rumor was true.

And yes, there was Bennett.  I remember the day we were starting rehearsal and Chris Osmond suddenly had this revelation.  He said, “I know who should sing ‘Mustang Sally’ – Bennett!”  And I think we all just immediately nodded our heads like, “Yeah!  Of course!”  I was so into the idea that I mentioned it to Bennett in class the next day, wondering if he might be tentative about it.  About an hour later I saw him singing the tune to himself and practicing dance moves.  When he performed in front of the school, I recall he was wearing a white suit and tie, and a matching white driving cap.  And as Will said, the reaction was amazing – the whole building shook.

(About two weeks ago I lost my passport in Nanjing, China.  I got it back a few hours later, through some miracle, and the woman who handed my passport back to me had gone to Burke, and knew Bennett from back in the day.)

What I most remember about the band is the sense of democracy.  Will and Chris were always open to our ideas and input.  They took music seriously but they were determined to bring the students on board, to make it a collaborative endeavor.  It was an incredibly supportive, positive, and joyful environment to make music in.  

Those days are gone forever, over a long time ago.  Oh yeah.
 
I have to admit I was surprised when we first played the Steely Dan tune.  I’d never heard of Steely Dan and for me that song was kind of an acquired taste.  But the variety of things we played was also a testament to the band’s openness, its pervading spirit of democracy and sense of adventure.  

Will, have you all played any John Zorn yet?  I remember suggesting it but you seemed to think we would be in a little over our heads.  Anyway it sounds like the band is much better drilled now, so the next time I see you all perform I hope there is a John Zorn tune on the set list.

Miss you all & take care.




Submitted by Blair Henneke, '97

Well I'm about 2 years too late on the reminiscence, but I stumbled on the page while laid up in bed recovering from pneumonia, and laughed and grinned reading those already submitted.  Strangely, I think I remember the first year the best too... sneaking off from play rehearsal to that downstairs classroom to do something that felt original and real. Later, that summer maybe? Sitting in the attic classroom watching The Commitments, all of us longing to be THEM, and then the moments later on when, in our own weird way, we were.  Remember when we had that random kid I was watching at rehearsal, and the feeling of that carriage house with the fire escape door open and spring rolling in and just a Saturday playing music for fun?

Michelle is right, it was Girls, Guys and Cake.  And I found the original shirt (we made tee shirts?) "It's not a recital, its a gig" and had the hardest time explaining to my husband how we really were cool, at least to ourselves (and in high school, at least our high school, that's not nothing).  I think its almost something too sacred to be talked about, that transient feeling of belonging to something that is organic and that you're proud of and that no one else has to get for it to matter.  

I remember locking myself in my room blasting Ella and Billie praying that I could get my voice to do what theirs did so easily.  AND I remember sneaking out with Michelle before our first concert to, well, I suppose with young recruits potentially reading I won't give details, but we thought it would deepen our voices so we could have that gravelly soul of 50 year old black women.  It didn't!

I remember the patience and endurance of the older and hipper musicians for our gigging vocalist nonsense, and how much sweeter it made the times it all came together so magically and we were a BAND.  And yes, Spike, Chris Lorrain, Pizzarelli.  But the heroes of the piece were Chris and Will.  Never were two bald men more adored.  Thank you guys.

I'm sure there's lots more, but for now, I'm glad the band is still kicking, though I don't know about this mainstream angle - I haven't seen it in person, I imagine it must loose something in the larger iteration.  Writing about this and thinking about you guys makes me hope we have an oddball reunion sometime... and get Bennet there.