Oak Middle School Jazz Band directed by Robert Harrell had another successful outing recently, this time at the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival. In Harrell’s first year at Oak, he’s helped the band make a clean sweep of first place finishes at every festival they’ve entered so far.
The band took first at the Esperanza Jazz Festival and first at the Irvine Jazz Festival where it also won Best Trumpet Section and Best Rhythm Section, as well as the individual and Best Saxophone Solo was won by Santiago Lopez and Cooper Hardwick won Best Trumpet Solo with an honorable mention to the flute section.
At the Monterey competition only individual awards were given for the Middle School division. Santiago Lopez won Best Saxophone Solo, and Brennan Murray won awards for Best Drum Solo and Best Saxophone Section Overall.
In total, 1,200 schools applied to compete at the festival and only six middle schools were accepted.
The Oak Jazz Band will also be featured this Sunday at the St. Isidore Showcase from 3-5 p.m. and also on the Spaghettini stage on Monday, May 22 at 7 p.m.
This article appeared in the April 12, 2017 print edition of the News Enterprise.