On Friday, May 15, the State College Area School District Music Department hosted its annual Jazz Night in the Performing Arts Center at State High, from 7-9:30 p.m.
The concert consisted of five different jazz bands, including the Mount Nittany Middle School Jazz Blue, Park Forest Middle School Jazz Band, and State High’s Jazz Band, Jazz Band II, and Jazz Band III.
The event was to honor and celebrate the excellence that is jazz music and present to the audience a swing of improvisation and the true feeling of the blues. With that, the night was a showcase of the students’ conception of jazz music and progression with their musicianship.
Mount Nittany Middle School’s Jazz Blue director, Matthew Nelson, gave the “why” behind Jazz Night being significant to the school and community.
“Jazz Night is a great way for the younger crew from Park Forest and Mount Nittany to get out and hear where jazz is headed and what they could grow into. Our community loves to come out and hear it because if you look around, there’s people of all ages here, and it’s a different kind of music you don’t get to hear all the time. And definitely something that people seem to really enjoy and gives you something to feel good about,” Nelson said. “It’s really cool to see the improvisation, all the solos on the spot, and be amazed at them making it up as they go, which people really appreciate because it’s unique and different.”
Each band performed a variation of three to four songs and each song composed of a different feeling to keep the audience engaged while also representing the complexity that goes with jazz.
“My favorite piece from tonight was ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’ because I played a lot on it and it is an elegy from Charles Mingus to his late friend who always wore a pork pie hat. You can hear so much pain in this song and that kind of music is for whoever is playing it can put everything into it. And that is something I don’t think a lot of songs are able to do,” senior and tenor saxophone player in Jazz Band II, Emerson Rand, said.
Along with that, right after the High School Jazz Band performed “Strut” from the composer Rick Hirsch, State High’s Jazz Band and Jazz Band III director, Paul Leskowicz, gave senior and alto saxophone Elliott Mathews the 2026 Louis Armstrong Jazz Award. This award was in recognition of outstanding achievement by an instrumentalist in the field of jazz demonstrated through superior musicianship, character, performance, and creativity.
“This award that I received tonight is a special one for me because I have been good friends with all the people who have won this award in the past three years. I’ve really looked up to them and for me to win this thing that they’ve all won, it makes me really happy,” said Mathews. “I think jazz is beautiful and often underappreciated. But it makes me happy that we get a full night to celebrate this music that I love and I know my friends do too.”
In preparation for this event, the bands rehearsed, listened to recordings, and built on skills that were already current but being expanded to fundamentals and basics of the genre.
“I believe it’s important for students to share the music with the audience to learn the heritage of our country and music. They develop and learn more about who they are through this and learn more about their emotions and other people’s emotions. They also learn, as I do, how to put those emotions into music and how it can be expressed,” Leskowicz said. “Young people want a voice and they want to be heard. They have something to say, it’s valued, and music is a great avenue for that.”
With no more scheduled performances this school year, Jazz Night marked the final performance for the district’s programs that brought together student musicians for an evening dedicated to celebrating music, collaborating, and community.
