The 15th Channing Jazz Evening took place on the last night of the Spring term in the Arundel Centre. All tickets were sold well in advance of the event and there was great anticipation for one of the favourite musical nights of the year. Our professional quartet started the night with two numbers led by our own Mr Theo Travis, Mr Alan Brown on drums, Mrs Andrea Vicary on piano and Miss Julie Walkington on bass.

One of the highlights of these evenings is our students singing with the professionals and on the night we had Ruby D singing ‘Blue Moon’, Georgina G and Evie M singing an arrangement of ‘Summertime’ acapella with a light string bass, Amy P singing ‘Cry me a river' and Evie M singing 'At Last'. All of them are stars in the making!

A promising young Saxophone Trio performed 'Skylark' with some additional accompaniment from the bass and drums, and our Brass Ensemble led by Mr Dodds performed a fabulous version of 'The Chicken!'. To round off the first part, three Y13s, Grace W on piano, Matilda O on bass and Celine O on vocals gave a stylish performance of 'Smooth Operator' - hopefully we may get a repeat performance at the Sixth Form Concert!

The Theo Travis Quartet started the second half and two of our soloists followed and the evening's finale was the Jazz Band performing a series of jazz greats, including Miles Davis' 'So What', Glen Miller's 'In a Sentimental Mood', and Herbie Hancock's 'Cantaloupe Island'. It was wonderful to witness so much exciting and stylistic improvisation from so many players during these numbers! A big thankyou to Mr Travis for all his hard work and encouragement of our students and well done to our young jazz musicians - ranging mostly from years 8-10! You can listen here.