I was browsing You-Tube for jazz bass auditions and came across two organizations I had not heard of before - Jazz Band of America (JBOA) and Grammy Jazz. What are these? How relevant and educational would either of these be to an aspiring jazz player, versus other ways to spend one’s time?
The JBOA and Grammy Camp Jazz Session are two of a handful of elite ensembles that top high school jazz musicians compete to play in. The Grammy band - called Grammy Band Jazz Session - is perhaps the top one of these. Band members spend about 10 days in LA performing at various public events and get to attend the Grammy awards show - with all expenses paid, including airfare. This past year, more than 600 high school instrumentalists and vocalists auditioned for 30 spots. Participation in Grammy band often leads to large merit awards (full tuition is common) from top music schools, including MSM, Berklee, and New School, so it’s definitely worth going for it.
Grammy Band is an amazing experience - my son knows several kids who have done it - but it’s also close to impossible to get in. The kids who get into programs like this are the “superstars” of high school jazz musicians. I would never discourage going for it, so long as your son doesn’t get daunted by rejections. My son applied to most of the “elite” high school jazz programs over the course of his high school career - Grammy Band, Young Arts Jazz Band, Brubeck Summer Jazz Colony, Next Gen Jazz Orcherstra (and maybe some others I’m forgetting) and got rejected from all of them. It’s good practice for being a musician. He did get an honorable mention from one, which he was thrilled by. There are a number of other excellent, but less competitive, high school jazz programs, so make sure to check those out too. A few are mentioned in this thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1739980-jazz-band-summer-programs.html.
Thank you, all. I found another new-to-me place with the internet search of “jazz audition chicago”. It is at mya.org and called Midwest Young Artists. Is that place on any radars out here?
MYA is a Chicago-based precollege music education program that I think is pretty well respected both for classical and jazz, but I don’t really know much about it. The only reason it’s on my radar at all (I’m not from Chicago) is that my son knows a jazz bassist who was in the MYA Jazz Big Band (as well as the MYA classical symphony orchestra) and who is now a junior in the Juilliard jazz program. I’ve heard him play and he’s really phenomenal.