Game day

Today's 20-hour marathon started with the tweet-tweet of Gavin's Palm/alarm. I pulled myself up out of the hotel bed and into the shower. Water easily sprayed my chest as the source of the solution came from about neck level. Yes, I think hotels here in Pullman are made for short people. I'm not a very tall guy but I feel something is wrong when I need to bend over to see my face in the bathroom mirror. Anyway, the rest of my room arose one after another to get ready for the day. Gavin and I headed across the parking lot to a fantastic breakfast spot that seemed to serve everything fresh. The real OJ felt great on my morning throat and the four pieces of crispy, lean bacon went well with the two eggs I ordered. Only one waitress was around to serve us which only proved to be a problem once other people from our group started showing up. At any rate, we ate a great breakfast and hopped on the bus to head to Moscow.

"And they're off!" is about the only that ran through my head upon arriving at the U of I campus. A dose of annual Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival deja vu set in and soon gave way to the rigor of the day. First up was our jazz combo with a set of songs that went well. Their groove was on as they impressed everyone with solid renditions of their charts. We all soon scurried over to another building on campus to listen to the first batch of vocal soloists. Ben, Matt, Rebekah, Kelley, and Britta flew through their tunes and received worthy feedback from their adjudicator. A quick lunch for some and then it was the tenor's turn to take the stage. I described to the rhythm section how to organize my charts and, before I knew it, I had a mic in my hand and I was counting off my set. I felt really good about my performance and, aside from a few world premiere lyrics, I think the audience and judge did as well. Gav then took the stage (A.K.A. front of the room) and cruised through his charts. We were both disappointed by our judge not spending any time communicating with us on the spot about our performances though we suppose taking that sort of effort was abnormal.

After a brief layover listening to Whitworth's jazz band (and Gavin's brother) compete we met up with the rest of our jazz choir near our warm-up site. A greater-than-one-hundred person pep-choir/band sang songs of Celebration that echoed through the halls where we waited. The monstrosity was unsettling but didn't curb the excitement that we exuded during our warm-up and once we got out on stage. And when we did that we let 'em have it! The choir exploded with a wall of sound rarely heard in these venues and only usually heard from a band with external instruments. All the very hard and time-consuming work everyone in the group put into this music all came out today. Once off stage and off our performance high, we met with a friend of Wayne's for some critique. She handed out many kudos and a few tidbits of criticism for us to chew upon. We kicked a little bit of vocal jazz ass up on that stage and that's all we came to do. Any gimmicks or politics that might stand in the way of our winning two years in a row could simply pack their bags and hit the road. We love what we sing and how we sing it.

A few of us hurried from our critique to the hear the jazz band blow their set. The group consisting of more freshman than usual had a great performance that will only get stronger if the younger players stick with it. It's still a little strange to see the band from an audience member's position but it's even stranger that every year that shifts the groups membership makes me feel more comfortable in my distance to them. Pretty soon the guys I played with will graduate and I'll know only the current director who wasn't even around when I played.

One more solo vocal [kick ars] performance by Wendy Gillis and then dinner. Oh, did I mention that Wendy kicked ars?! A few of us wandered down the street from the U of I campus in search of a source of large quantities of good food. An Italian restaurant just up the street (past some silly signs) satisfied our cravings and filled us with the need for a nap before the night's professional concerts. After leaving with a really large box of leftover pizza we stopped by the U of I student union building to see competition results. All were let-downs except for our nearly disqualified combo's win. Wayne seemed disappointed that our choir and all soloists came up apparently short of what it took to win this year at Hampton. I think we came up just somewhere to the wrong side of what it took to win. Hearing the 1st place performers tonight at the professional concert leads me to believe that there's a certain style of jazz vocal performance that us singers from PLU just don't hold. Heck, we don't even want to hold it. The alto that beat out Wendy was at least 30-years-old, hardly fair to place in the same category as someone 10 years her youth. Britta and Kelley were bested by a flip-haired soprano from Columbia Basin College that had trouble holding a tune and annunciating her lyrics. Oh, she didn't even venture to take a skat either. And finally Gavin and I lost to a moron that didn't respect his rhythm section (or even the profession one that backed him up at tonight's concert!), couldn't sing a melody to save his life, who tried to mimic an upright bass in a memorized solo this tenor took both today and tonight.

I'm not normally upset by such things because, in the end, we all know we did well. But this just pisses me off! There's no rhyme or reason to the results spewed out by the judges of the various vocal-related competitions at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. "Arbitrary" is a curse word that does apply at all to the methodology used in determining winners in this branch of jazz. I'm not a sore loser because we did great both this year and last with wins in something both times. I just feel horrible that a group of college students who know how to swing their butts off was denied any recognition of that talent this year. A pocks on this festival. Next year Wayne wants to take us to Reno.

So with a win in their pocket the rhythm section hung with the big boy backstage while we all enjoyed the concert from our better-than-normal seats out front. The jazz drug on late into the night and finally ended sometime after the turn of the next day. My hotel roommates and I laughed ourselves into a silly, late-night mode. It was, nevertheless, easy to get to sleep after a 20-hour day like today. PLU held our own today and, although shafted repeatedly from the official results, we unofficially kicked some serious dust in the faces of those who hold their cheesy, anything-but-jazz styles close to their hearts and vocal chords.

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