SOUTHLAKE – The Carroll Senior High School jazz program will spend six hours Sunday recording what could be their ticket to another invitation to a nationally ranked jazz competition.

“These kids in particular tend to be very motivated,” said David Lown. “They love listening to music. They love delving into the history of music. They love playing alone together.”

Jazz band leader David Lown said he was fortunate to guide the self-directed musicians. His crop comes primarily from middle schools, feeding into a program that has worked hard to maintain its reputation since the early 1970s.

Lown has attended the Essentially Ellington Jazz Competition at Lincoln Center five out of six times since 2007 with members of the jazz program. He hopes they will travel again in May 2025.

“However, there is no guarantee, and over the last few years, all of these students have learned what it feels like to not have our name mentioned when the announcement is made,” he said. “So I think it takes a lot of fire and energy to really make a good record.”

Among the program’s 21 members, four were all-state players, which she said is almost unheard of. The group plays as a big band and in ensembles such as the “Blue Moon Quartet”.

“It’s like it’s half work and music and then half like chilling with your friends and communicating through music,” Matteo Longarani said.

The senior is classically trained on the piano. Longarani said he has been playing for 14 years. And of course he talks jazz like baristas talk about coffee. He comes with passionate punches.

“What jazz musicians call practice is called woodshed. This is a term for going to a place to practice. So I just skinned,” he said.

It shows. Lown said jazz greats have a hard time expressing what jazz is all about. Longarani has a working definition.

“Improvisation first, of course, right? Mr. Lown always says, you know, we compose on the spot; “We’re like Mozart, right?” said Longarani.

Lown said composition and performance occur simultaneously. He used the simplicity of speaking as an analogous example.

“When we talk, we don’t interrupt each other at the moment. We listen to each other and continue the conversation while both talking at the same time,” Lown said. “It’s almost incomprehensible to think about it in human language, and yet we do it musically.”

Longarani said the technical aspects and atmosphere made up the rest. His colleagues are also immersed in the genre. Braxton Gunser began taking drum lessons in eighth grade.

Gunser is a junior who follows the flow of the melody.

“The main focus of a drum kit is to keep time. So you play the melody and I can just join in and then when I compose or play a solo over it,” he said.

The camaraderie, musicality and a certain coolness are part of the life of a jazz musician. Being an excellent musician means working in the “shed” to honor the music that shakes, shuffles, rumbles, shakes and moves a room.

“So there are a lot of things that motivate here, especially the competition,” said Lown. “But more than that, the music itself is motivating because we want to reach the level of the previous masters whose recordings we listen to.”