News

Monterey Jazz Finalists Announced

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CONGRATULATIONS Jazz Band II and Vocal Jazz for being selected as Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival finalists!!

NGJF will be held in Monterey, CA from April 8-10, 2016. High school and college ensembles from across the country and Canada applied to compete. We’re excited to announce that Jazz II is one of only twelve bands selected to compete in the High School Big Band division and our Vocal Jazz is one of only eight ensembles selected to complete in the High School Vocal Ensemble division. Click here for more information.

Monterey will be well presented by Roosevelt at the competition with Jazz II and Vocal Jazz, in addition to Jazz III and our combos performing as Special Guest Ensembles at the Festival!

Congratulations also goes to our friends at Eckstein Middle School and Jane Addams Middle School for being selected as Middle School finalists!

Thank you to all our wonderful musicians and vocalists, Mr. Brown and Michael for all the hard work!

JB1 Headed to Essentially Ellington

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Jazz at Lincoln Center has just announced the 15 finalist bands to compete in 21st annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival. Congratulations and great job to Jazz Band I and Mr. Brown–they are New York bound again this year!  Congratulations also to our friends at Garfield and Mount Si, who were also selected as finalists.

Hot Java Cool Jazz on March 25

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Roosevelt’s Jazz Band 1 has been invited again this year to perform in Starbuck’s Hot Java Cool Jazz program on Friday March 25 at the Paramount Theater. Each participating band is given the opportunity to sell a limited number of tickets to this event, and all proceeds from the sales of those tickets go directly to that school’s program. This event is an opportunity for us to raise over $6300! In addition, the first school to sell out their portion of the tickets earns a $500 gift certificate to Kennelly Keys. So we are eager to sell out our allotment of tickets as soon as possible!

Remember, if your student is in JB1 they will need to purchase a ticket if they would like to sit in the theater to listen to the other schools perform. Otherwise, the Paramount requires them to stay backstage when not performing.

This year we will be selling our school’s portion of the tickets ONLY online. You can purchase your tickets for $23 via this link.

You will receive your tickets in the mail within the next month.

We expect that, as in year’s past, this performance will sell out early, so buy your tickets online right away! They are already selling fast!

Thanks for your continued support of Roosevelt Jazz!

Welcome to our new JB2/3 Director

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We are very excited to welcome Michael Van Bebber as our JB2/3 director!

Michael was raised in Seattle, and graduated from the University of Washington before going on to earn two M.A. degrees in classical trumpet and composition at Truman State University, and a D.M.A. in Jazz Studies from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. He performed many years as a member of the renowned Eastman Jazz Ensemble, and has shared the stage with many notable jazz artists including Lee Konitz, John Pizzarelli, the Woody Herman Band, Walt Weiskopf, Chuck Mangione, Jeff Beal, Walter White, John Fedchock, Pat LaBarbara, Marvin Stamm, and Bill Dobbins. He has also appeared several times at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, in both quintet and big band settings.

Michael is a member of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. As a composer, he has earned several prestigious awards in composition, including the 2004 MACRO Composition/Theory Award, the 2005 CBDNA Wind Ensemble National Composition Competition, the 2005 College Music Society’s International Composition Competition. Michael has been the director of the Junior Jazz Band at Washington Middle School, the Director of Bands at Liberty High School and the interim director for JB2 last year. Michael is currently on the faculty of Northwest school.