I asked my jazz band kids, “How do you get to the Midwest Clinic?” They responded with the usual answers. When I said “practice”, they didn’t think it was too funny especially since the joke didn’t involve Carnegie Hall.

Not too many years ago a friend and colleague of mine turned me onto the Midwest Clinic. I don’t know where I had been; perhaps my head was in the sand. I simply was not familiar with the largest International Band and Orchestra Conference in the world.

What follows is an overview of the Jenkins Middle School Jazz Ensemble’s experience preparing for and performing at the Midwest Clinic. It is slanted toward motivating middle school jazz ensemble directors, but it may prove to be helpful to others, as well.

Build Your Program
Hosea Haynes once told me that I don’t rebuild my Jazz Band each year, I just reload. Along with our band method book and sheet music, I have every 6th grade band member playing out of the book, “Standard of Excellence Jazz Ensemble Method” by Dean Sorenson and Bruce Pearson. In 7th grade concert band we use “Standard of Excellence Advanced Jazz Ensemble Method”. We all know that jazz is America’s original art form and it is so important to include jazz in our day to day curriculum whether a student is in our jazz band or not.

If you attended one of our 6th or 7th grade concerts you would hear terrific contemporary band literature by the likes of James Swearingen, Robert W. Smith, Michael Sweeney, John Edmondson, Robert Sheldon, Anne McGinty, Mark Williams, James Ployhar and so many others. However, you would also enjoy a swing chart with improvisations by the kids and a Latin and rock tune also. I promote individual improvisation starting in 6th grade. If you wait to start this until 8th grade, it may be too late. The younger students seem more open to trying new things. Using the jazz method books, encouraging students to take private lessons and using my professional experience with improvisation, the kids seem to love to solo over the 12 bar blues and other chord changes and styles.

Submit Your Application
In January of 2007, our Jazz Ensemble performed at the Colorado Music Educators Clinic/Conference. As a result, I was mailed an invitation to apply for the Midwest Clinic. With a strong history of good bands and a new principal, I got the administrator’s signature and blessing. The rest of the application requirements were challenging, but quite doable. Throughout my career I had the opportunity to meet many respected music educators, performers and adjudicators. I always kept in touch with these people and I asked them for my needed letters of reference. These educators represented groups like the Music Educators National Conference, International Association of Jazz Educators, American School Band Directors Association, the Air Force Falconaires, the University of Southern Colorado and other sources. Band directors can be the worst with getting paperwork in by a deadline, so I asked that these letters of reference be faxed directly to the Midwest office.

Also, in my application packet, I included my bio and photo, concert programs from the past five years, several adjudicator forms from past jazz festivals and CD recordings from the previous performance at the state music convention.

I had one more hurdle to jump over and that was making a DVD of a performance or rehearsal. The camera could not be from the audience’s perspective, but needed to be within and behind the band. We had another jazz festival coming up soon so I asked the festival chairman if I could have a parent record our band as we performed on stage. It was a little weird to see Mr. Nygaard out of the corner of my eye as we performed at that festival. He smoothly went from section to section and he even recorded from the back of the ensemble so as to see me counting off a tune and giving cues at the appropriate places. I guess this idea worked!

Get Everyone On Board
I remember opening a letter from the Midwest Clinic office on a Friday after school. I was in the main office with three of our secretaries. As I read the letter of invitation to perform at Midwest, one of the secretaries asked if I was having a heart attack. I smiled with tears in my eyes and I knew that the next eight months would be like no other.

From that moment on, I had our secretaries in my corner. You already read that our new principal was behind us. The next week I spread the news to students, parents, staff members, the P.T.A., administrators, the fine arts supervisor, friends, colleagues and the local media. You see I knew that I needed a grand support system to make this opportunity successful. To keep your blood pressure down, ask for help and they will come!

Fundraising
I will never miss that word when I retire. One of our assistant principals immediately started a cookie dough fundraiser. Another parent asked the Parent Teacher Association for money. Our principal called the superintendent and asked for the school district’s financial support.

Our local Meeker Music store owners contacted the Jupiter Band Instrument Company to ask for their help in acquiring new instruments for our jazz members. Several more fundraiser activities were scheduled for the fall including selling ButterBraids and items from All American Fund Raising. Public concerts were scheduled that included media coverage from our local Channel 5. The Mayor of Colorado Springs dedicated August 8 as “Brian Usher Day”. Chik-Fil-A provided food for everyone in the audience at a park concert that day. Donations came in totaling over $1,000 on August 8.

Our Jazz Ensemble played outside our local Wal-Mart during a Saturday afternoon. The parents had a bake sale and a fish bowl for donations. That day brought in over $2,000. The Antlers Hilton Hotel provided a conference room for a Friday night concert for the community. The hotel had snacks for everyone in the audience and the parents had a silent auction. The Army post at Fort Carson had their acappella jazz vocal group, Harmony in Motion, perform with us. That evening brought in over another $1,000.

Our Jazz Ensemble practiced every other week during the summer with several concerts throughout the community. Only five students from last year’s Jazz Band would not go on to high school. Fourteen out of nineteen members in the Jazz Band were new to the group. I didn’t have to rebuild; I just had to reload.

The Vista Grande Baptist Church invited us to perform for them. The concert was recorded for air time on local television. That evening brought in another $1,000 in donations and countless more as checks kept arriving in the mail. By the time that we left for Chicago, we had raised more than $30,000 which is not bad for a middle school band program. This could not have happened without an incredibly strong parent/school support system involving the local media, businesses and community!

Why Am I Getting Boxes and Boxes of Music in the Mail?
At first it was like Christmas in the summertime. Boxes of CDs, scores and full jazz band charts arrived at my home from different publishing companies and it was all free! How cool is that? I listened and listened and studied the scores. I chose various grade levels of difficulty and different styles. I would then go to my personal area on the Midwest Clinic website to reserve my choices. Each time I thought that I had a terrific program chosen for our Midwest performance, more boxes would arrive in the mail. I didn’t keep track of all the time that I spent listening and looking at music last summer. My wife says that it was way too much time. When you finally have your program chosen and accepted by the Midwest Clinic committee, it is a beautiful thing!

Guest Soloists/Conductors and the Printed Program for the Concert
Colorado Springs is blessed to be home to the Air Force Falconaires Big Band. Several of my students have parents in the Air Force Bands. We were so fortunate to be granted the services of Sgt. Mark Burditt on trombone and Sgt. Geoffrey Torres on tenor saxophone. They did double duty as they also had a recruiting booth for the Air Force in the exhibits hall.

I never did come up with a guest conductor idea. How much conducting does one need to do with a jazz band anyway?

Our executive secretary, Vickie Newkirk, so beautifully designed our printed programs for our Midwest Clinic concert. A parent shot the photos for the program. Vickie found a production company to print our programs at cost. That cost was then picked up by the Jupiter Band Instrument Company. Thanks to you all!

Travel, Itinerary, Chaperones and Instruments
I suggest that you acquire a travel agent to book your airline tickets. We used the Travel 100 Group recommended by the Midwest Clinic. I would steer clear of having any lay-overs or flight changes during your travel as this is when luggage and instruments could be lost.

Get the phone number for airport transportation and book a shuttle bus from the airport and back to the airport. Pay for this in advance and keep your info and confirmation numbers always within reach. I suggest that you call each service that you book with the day before to confirm, including travel, lodging, transportation, meals, activities and the like.

We booked an entire floor at the Best Western Grant Park Hotel. We had a parent chaperone for every three students in addition to me, an assistant principal, the principal and the fine arts supervisor. We also had other parents, grandparents and family members in attendance. The kids were covered; there was no room for problems.

Several parents and I put together an itinerary for each day. We had each minute of the day scheduled with travel, meals, visiting the exhibits, attending concerts, going to the Field Museum of Natural History and visiting the John G. Shedd Aquarium. We all had a little “down time” right before “lights out” each evening.

Each student and adult had a copy of our itinerary which included our day to day agenda, lists of phone numbers and important medical information, an emergency plan and maps and directions to everything.

Regarding our band instruments on the airline flights, each student checked their instrument as their second piece of luggage. Do not lock your instrument cases as they may be searched, as many of ours were. We did not pay any extra to check our instruments. We sent our printed programs, mutes and saxophone music stands with a family who drove their SUV to Chicago. We would have shipped these items to the Chicago Hilton if we didn’t have this family driving to Chicago.

Money in Chicago
Taking 40 kids and adults to a restaurant and then asking for separate checks will get you some strange looks! I suggest that your students have available cash and a personal credit card to use. The best idea for meals may be to have everyone pay a certain amount before your travels and deposit that money in a school account. Our assistant principal had a school credit card that came in quite handy for this. Each chaperone had a stash of snacks available for the kids at any given time.

Our district fine arts supervisor purchased commemorative plaques for each student. Each member also received a Midwest Clinic backpack from our principal. Each band member had ordered a CD/DVD bundle ahead of time and a photo order was made for each band member from our fundraiser monies. Other souvenir purchases were handled by the individual students and parents.

The Final Rehearsal
I do not know who showed up for our rehearsal at the Hilton the night before our Midwest Clinic concert. They certainly were not acting and playing like the kids that I had prepared. They were unfocused and out of control with little discipline or common direction in sight. What is up with this?

To the rescue came Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser! Through a contact person with the Air Force, Dr. Tim had offered to assist my band in any way that he could. Fortunately, I had asked if he would kindly attend our rehearsal that evening. Dr. Tim saw what was going on with the kids as he has seen so many times before. Our rehearsing came to an end as playing the charts seemed to be a waste of time at the moment. Through leadership exercises to game playing and some heavy duty motivational speaking, Dr. Tim brought my kids back to me that evening. I will always be indebted to him for his time and expertise.

Photo Session, Warm-up and the Concert
The photo session went quickly and smoothly after each musician had found their place on stage in the Grand Ballroom at the Hilton. All the rhythm section amps, equipment and other things that I had requested were ready for us.

Next we started our warm-up routine which, I remember, lasted about two minutes. We were asked to test all of the many microphones that were on the stage, one for each instrument. This activity took the remainder of our warm-up time. What a pleasure to have professionals so expertly operate the sound system for our group. Then we were asked to leave the stage as the main doors were about to be opened to let the audience arrive. We tuned up individually and in sections offstage.

Twenty minutes later, the band was instructed to take the stage while I waited behind. I remember listening to Richard Dunscomb introducing our band and wondering if all this time, money and effort would prove to be worth it. The concert went by in the blink of an eye. I directed, watched, listened, but most of all smiled and enjoyed my students performing their biggest concert of their young lives. After the last chart was over, some one thousand people stood up, clapped and cheered. I will never forget the sounds and sights of that last moment!

It was wonderful to be greeted by music educators from all over the country. There were also folks like Dr. Tim, Ralph Ford, James Swearingen, Craig Skeffington, Antonio García and so many other people with kind greetings to give. I am so happy for the parents of our jazz students and I am so proud to have had the pleasure to share this experience with these wonderful kids!

What Now?
After watching our lead alto sax player, Anisha Rush, solo with the incredible New Trier High School Jazz Ensemble, we all went to the John G. Shedd Aquarium and had a great afternoon. Later, we went back to our hotel for a pizza party, a secret Santa gift exchange and some time for each of us to share with one another what this opportunity meant to us. I will never forget what our bass trombone player, Wesley, said that evening to all of us, “I learned, from Dr. Tim, that it is the first impression that is the most important. You do not get a second chance. It comes down to being ready to focus and present yourself to the fullest and to the best of your ability for the group’s sake. Even in everyday life we need to pay more attention and focus on what is asked of us. How high can we reach? We each can reach higher than we think. Mr. Usher deserves that and so do each of us if we have a common goal and strive for it together. It is not about me; it is about us.”

The next morning, my wife and I said our goodbyes to each student, parent, grandparent, sibling and administrator as they boarded the shuttle bus to O’Hare airport. Phyllis and I would stay for two more days to wind down and take in Chicago.

We visited the exhibits again and I enjoyed my “15 minutes of fame” as it was like I was a celebrity. So many educators, composers, magazine publishers and others took a moment to extend their congratulations to me and our kids. Wow!

Phyllis and I danced the night away to some great blues music at Green Dolphin Street. We were thoroughly entertained and amazed at the musical, “Wicked”. We enjoyed our last evening at Andy’s Jazz Supper Club. I highly recommend that you and your spouse stay in Chicago for some time after your students leave. The Midwest Clinic experience tested our marriage, at times. Take this opportunity to express your gratitude to your spouse for their never ending support. Thank you, Phyllis. I appreciate you being by my side throughout this past year. I couldn’t have done it without you!

As I look forward to finishing the end of my 30th year as a band director, I wonder what the future has in store for my young musicians and me. We will need 17 new students in our Jazz Ensemble next fall. Hopefully, we won’t have to rebuild, just reload.

Brian Usher has been a band director in Colorado Springs for the past 30 years. This is the first time that the Midwest Clinic has invited a middle school band from Colorado to perform for this International Band and Orchestra Conference. To have his Jenkins Middle School Jazz Ensemble perform at the 2007 Midwest Clinic in Chicago is the pinnacle of his professional career. This memory will last forever!

He can be reached at 719-598-2152 or at