Jazz

We spent a few hours at the Wichita Jazz Festival last night. This is an annual event that brings in middle school, high school and college jazz bands, mostly from Kansas, some from outside Kansas, to Wichita State University for clinics and performances. We went to hear Michelle's brother, Nathan, play with the Fort Hays State Jazz band, of which he's been a member for several years.

We met Nathan, his girlfriend Ashley, and Matthew and Joella at the concert hall at about 7:30, sat through a couple hours of performances from college jazz bands, and then got to hear Nathan's play. They were pretty good, and we all enjoyed listening to him. He's semi-easy to pick out if you know what to listen for. He refuses to play solo parts, but he's excellent at hitting high notes on his trumpet, so he gets all of those, and he has this amazingly beautiful tone, and on the occasional number, he'll get a pretty little run of notes going when no one else is playing that just brings tears to your eyes. Well, to mine, anyway. :)

Here are a couple of pictures from last night's performance. Nathan is the second trumpet from the left - the tall guy with the red shirt and the ponytail.



Nathan also brought along his new graphic equalizer t-shirt at my request. This is hilarious! He's not allowed to wear it to performances, so we took a video at home this morning.