Granada’s Music Program is filled with different kinds of music. Usually, you find a concert band playing classical music, sometimes you can find a group of people playing pep tunes, and you can even find some nice jazz music. Granada’s Jazz Band, ran by Mr. George Pascoe, is a zero period class that students can take to jazz up their life and use as a way of adding more color to their musical catalog.

Jazz Band consists of Saxophones, Trumpets, Trombones, Basses, Guitars, a Drum Set, and more, with over 31 people taking up the course, spanning all grade levels at the high school.

In the Jazz Band, there are two seperate bands known as the Black Band and the Gold Band.

The Black band is full of new members to the music program or old members helping the new members with getting used to how Jazz Band runs. They are playing songs like “Maiden Voyage” arranged by Eric Morales, “Backatown” arranged by John Wasson, and “Flight of the Foo-Birds” arranged by Roy Phillippe.

The Gold Band is full of Granada’s best performers who have the ability to play extremely well, play high, and extremely loud energizing everyone.

“In Gold Band, we play songs like ‘Struttin’ with the Barbecue,’ ‘Filthy McNasty,’ and many different New Orleans themed tunes that jump around, and as the higher level of the jazz bands, we need to show our dedication and pride with our performances to everyone,” said Leo Jin, the Gold Band baritone saxophone.

Keagan Ott, a Gold Band trumpet player said, “I love Jazz because of high notes, different solos and the ability to express ourselves through the music, and it’s just a fun time all around.”

Within Jazz Band, there are groups of people that pick their own music and play in combos. This year, there is one combo called the Wombo Combo. The Wombo Combo consists of Tomer Kibbar, Shunsuke Sakagami, John Viri, Adrian Wong,  Jacob Garcia, Mateo Louis, and Ruman Das.

Tomer Kibbar, a senior trombone player, expressed that,”We formed Wombo Combo because we wanted more freedoms to pick and play our songs and have more freedom with improvising. We’ve played wacky songs like ‘Shreksophone,’ but we also have played well known jazz songs like ‘Cantaloupe Island’ by Herbie Hancock, ‘Chameleon’ by Victor Lopez, and ‘My Favorite Things’ by Paul Murtha. We still change these songs like how we rebuilt ‘My Favorite Things’ from the ground up, we love jazz especially in the Wombo Combo.”

The Jazz Band has many different flavors of music with different waltz, blues, swing, and more. The Jazz Band adds the spice to the Granada’s Music Program.