Eight bars in, and Tyler Garbrick gets his groove.
“Blues by Five,” is the tune.
Like its title suggests, “Blues by Five” is a hard-bopping, almost out-of-kilter work of that genre by Miles Davis, the taciturn trumpeter from East St. Louis who first became known in the late 1940s for his early “Birth of the Cool” musings.
Davis took the uniquely American art form of jazz, and aurally yanked it inside out.
Especially in that Sputnik-tailfin year of 1957, when he and his legendary quintet – that’s John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones – seasoned by the bandstand as they were, went into the studio to wrangle the kinetic energy of “Blues by Five.”
When it’s his turn to play on the tune nearly 70 years later, Tyler steps back, and leans in, at the same time, from his spot on the stage of the school auditorium.
His eyes are closed, as he coaxes a cascade of notes, swinging and hard-edged, from his saxophone.
At the edge of that stage, all is copacetic for Mark Palmer.
“Perfect,” said the UHS band director who directs the school’s Jazz Combo.
“Now go do that in Charleston.”
Singing praises
That happens this coming Thursday in the state’s capital city, when Tyler and his bandmates in the aforementioned ensemble perform at the 2025 West Virginia Music Educators Conference.
You have to earn this gig.
Audition only.
“You have to remember that we were out nine days because of the weather,” Palmer said this past Thursday, while the combo was working out the Miles tune and others it will play during the program.
“We weren’t in school to rehearse,” Palmer said, ducking into the hallway to make himself heard.
So, the combo rehearsed on their own and put a tape together. It wasn’t long before Palmer got the call.
“They wanted to audition and they did,” the director said. “I was impressed.”
In the moment …
He’s just as impressed by what he says is the combo’s collective, legitimate appreciation of jazz from that era.
After all, a lot of the jazz of that generation saw some of its more existential wanderings morph into the progressive arm of 1960s rock ‘n’ roll, a decade later.
“Yeah, we love this stuff,” said trombonist Sebastian Duenaz-Diaz, who spent his past Thanksgiving in New York City, marching and playing in Macy’s Great American Band, another elite assemblage of the nation’s best high school musicians.
“It really holds up.”
A tight, rehearsed group does, too.
Ryder Merritt, who’s contributing a walking line on his bass, nods over at drummer Cyrus Wright, who’s riding the hi-hat, in locked-on accompaniment.
Tyler and Sebastian have their own musical telepathy as they trade off solos.
And so does Jack Byrer, who flicks his eyes up from the neck of his hollow body electric guitar in the direction of pianist Donovan Redman – for Donovan’s cue to go traveling up and down 88 keys, blue notes all the way.
Toby White, a trumpeter himself, fills the space in such fashion that would make Miles proud.
Halle Lewis, who lends her vocals to the bossa nova classic, “Girl from Ipanema,” among other compositions, was absent from rehearsal this morning.
She won’t miss the music educator’s gig, she said.
“They’re good,” Palmer said.
“And I want them to keep that momentum,” he added, while never lifting his gaze from the musicians.
“I don’t want audiences to say, ‘they’re good for high school,’ or they’re ‘not bad, for kids.’ They’re motivated and talented. I think about where they’re gonna be 10 years from now, if they stay at it.”
Building bridges (and all that jazz)
Charleston and the music educator conference is a familiar venue for Palmer.
Since 2013 his students, be they working in jazz or orchestral music, have auditioned their way in and have performed on the bill in the coveted Honor Ensemble slot.
“OK, that’s a big deal,” he said.
“It’s a big deal, because it’s the conference, and it’s really a big deal because it’s our kids.”
With 1950s jazz being so concise and free-form at the same time, what is, say, Tyler, thinking about when he’s playing?
“I’m focusing on the song and where I can go next,” the saxophonist said.
Especially, he said, when it’s time for a solo.
“You’re building a bridge. You have to really listen. If you don’t do that, you just end up playing a lot of notes that don’t mean anything.”
