Our History |
It all began on a chilly Saturday morning in January 2004. Alumni of the Franklin High School Jazz Lab met in the basement band room at FHS to read through charts that would be played as a set at the school’s annual Big Band Dance fundraiser for the music department. The group sounded pretty good and the performance the following month was a success. Soon there was talk of continuing to rehearse as a group and looking for additional places to play.
That spring an opportunity became available to be part of a group of four local big bands that would each play one Monday night per month at a new club opening on Alaskan Way near the Pike Place Market. The band was chosen to be part of the rotation and it became time to come up with a name that was more commercially viable than The Franklin High School Alumni Jazz Lab. Since the rehearsal space and the club itself were both in basements, it was agreed during a brainstorming session that Jazz Underground was the best choice. Before long Jazz Underground was performing monthly at the Highway 99 Blues Club, opening for The Jazz Police at Tula’s and making appearances at various events around western Washington from Westport to Anacortes. In time the band earned their own slots on the calendar at Tula’s while continuing to play throughout the region at the University District Street Fair, the Taste of Tacoma, the Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon and at the Northwest Folklife Festival. Jazz Underground has been part of the Jackson Jazz Walk and was honored to have Seattle jazz legend Floyd Standifer play with the band. More recently the ensemble has become a regular fixture on the Market Stage at Crossroads Bellevue and at The Royal Room in Columbia City. Finding rehearsal space for a group the size of Jazz Underground has always been a challenge. After the instrumental music room at Franklin was no longer available, the band became somewhat nomadic rehearsing in people’s basements, in at least two elementary school cafeterias, a Masonic lodge, two churches, a condominium clubhouse, an acrobatics gym and in the community room of an artist community. Recently the band has found a new home on Mercer Island that we hope will be a permanent one. It’s just minutes away from the Rainier Valley roots of the group. Many musicians have played with Jazz Underground since its inception twenty years ago. People leave to take jobs in other cities, attend school, to raise their families and for a myriad of reasons. Some of our members make a living teaching and playing music, but most do not. Although the personnel has changed over the years, Jazz Underground has always been a community musical group where people who love to play contemporary big band jazz and challenge themselves as musicians can do so. Today there are just five members of the group that were at that rehearsal back in January of 2004, but there are dozens more who have contributed to the musical growth of the band over the years. |