Hoover High jazz band featured at prestigious Midwest Clinic in Chicago

Hoover High School’s First Edition Jazz Band recently was one of five high school jazz bands to perform at the prestigious Midwest Clinic in Chicago.

With more than 18,000 attendees from all 50 states and more than 30 countries, the clinic is billed as the largest instrumental music education conference in the world, and bands must audition to be able to perform there.

Hoover’s 26-member First Edition Jazz Band gave an hourlong concert on Dec. 19 that included performances with renowned trombonist Wycliffe Gordon and Todd Stoll, a trumpeter who is the vice president of education at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.

The jazz band played 10 selections to a crowd of roughly 800 to 1,000 people, mostly music educators, said Hoover High band director Ryan Fitchpatrick, who directed the band along with jazz band director Sallie Vines White.

The Hoover students were able to learn from Gordon and Stoll during a rehearsal on Dec. 18 and perform with them the following day, Fitchpatrick said. They also had a chance to hear the U.S. Air Force Band and visit the expo that featured a wealth of instrument manufacturers and any kind of products imaginable associated with instrumental music and music education, he said.

For the average person, that may not mean much, but for them, “that’s kind of like being a kid in a candy store or a Disney World-type experience,” Fitchpatrick said. “They had a lot of fun.”

On the way home, the students were talking about how incredible the experience was for them, he said.

During their three-day stay in Chicago, the students also had a chance to see numerous sights, including the Magnificent Mile commercial center, Navy Pier and the 110-story Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower).