‘Ellingtoniana’: The Sant Andreu Jazz Band at Dizzy’s Club in NYC

In May of 2025, Barcelona’s internationally praised Sant Andreu Jazz Band, consisting of young musicians ranging from pre-teen to roughly 21 years old, made quite the splash at the Essentially Ellington competition in New York, coming in 2nd Place among thirty American high school big bands. The event was created in 1995 by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center organization, and the SAJB’s Runner-Up achievement as an international guest competitor — under its founder and director Joan Chamorro — surprised and elated the band as well as their supportive parents, friends, and observers of the event.

The achievement inspired Joan Chamorro to create “Ellingtoniana” as one of the main themes of the band’s concerts throughout the rest of 2025 and ’26.

This year, the SAJB returned to New York and Jazz at Lincoln Center venue in late September for several performances. On Friday the 18th, they played before, during intermission, and after the concert of the Marsalis Plays the Masters concert, which consisted of Wynton Marsalis arrangements of famous jazz tunes as played by the JALC orchestra.

Dizzy’s Club, on that same floor of the Frederick P. Rose Hall facility at Columbus Circle, served as the venue for the SAJB’s Sunday evening performances. Like the Appel Room, the club (named after Dizzy Gillespie, and which opened on his birthday in 2004) features a floor-to-ceiling window behind the stage overlooking Central Park South and mid-town Manhattan.

The SAJB has long ago grown accustomed to playing venues of all sizes, both indoor and outdoor, in major concert halls and small clubs. And they seemed quite comfortable playing at Dizzy’s, whose design and 150-seat capacity manages to feel both spacious and intimate at the same time.

The full house Sunday was treated to tunes featuring guest Paul Nedzela, baritone saxophonist in the JALC orchestra since 2014, who contributed to several numbers and who has recorded with the band in Barcelona. He has also collaborated with virtuoso jazz violinist Èlia Bastida – former SAJB member and partner of Joan Chamorro – for their recently released album Èlia Bastida Meets Paul Nedzela. The two collaborated onstage for the third set, to promote the album.

Another guest, vocalist Edu Ferrer, was an original member of the SAJB back in 2006 and is now a frequent guest singer with the band, specializing in his Frank Sinatra tributes. He was on hand to sing a number of selections in each set.

There has been a turnover of more than a half-dozen members since Essentially Ellington; veteran saxophonist/vocalist Koldo Munne himself will leave the band at the end of this year, as will trumpeter Elsa Armengou, who joined the band at the tender age of six, and who played for over a decade alongside sister Alba in the SAJB trumpet section.

Despite the ongoing change of musicians in the band, and the unusually high number in the past year, Chamorro has been able to maintain an extraordinary level of quality and consistency with every concert and individual number, having chosen the new musicians carefully after discussions, auditions and musical assignments given to every aspiring member.

Sunday evening’s first set, comprised of mostly Ellington compositions, kicked off with “Do Nothing ’Til You Hear From Me” (aka “Concerto for Cootie”) a number the SAJB has played on numerous occasions since 2015 with Rita Payes’ memorable version. The current arrangement had Elsa leading the band with a typically impeccable trumpet solo.

From there, songs included the classic “Mood Indigo” featuring Elsa on trumpet once again, “Too Close for Comfort” (with Koldo on vocals) and “With Plenty of Money and You,” with Edu Ferrer’s vocals. Ferrer also performed “Poor Butterfly,” another longtime favorite number in the SAJB’s repertoire.

Paul Nedzela joined the band on “The Opener,” which, appropriately enough, is the swing tune the SAJB opened with at Essentially Ellington last year. Here, though, Joan Chamorro created space for a long string of no fewer than eight solos in a row, giving the audience a taste of the abundant talent among the individual musicians. They swung like pros.

Trombonist Irina Fernandez, became a member late last year shortly after the exit of the popular vocalist/trombonist Claudia Rosety, and took center stage for “I Ain’t Got Nothing but the Blues.” It has no doubt been a challenge for Irina to be assigned the same song that won Claudia the Outstanding Vocalist prize at Essentially Ellington — such a task inevitably invites comparison — but, in the evening’s second set, she was also given the Brazilian bossa nova number “Noites Cariocas” to sing with considerable and appealing expressiveness.

Other selections included a duet between Nedzela and SAJB baritone saxophonist Bernat  Benavente on Ellington’s “The Aristocracy a la Jean LaFitte,” and Sander Theuns’ lead on alto for “Isfahan,” a tune that gave him the spotlight in two rounds of Essentially Ellington.

With such a high number of newer and younger bandmembers joining the fold as the “elder” musicians prepare to leave by the end of the year, it’s worth acknowledging just a few individuals who have in traditional SAJB fashion, impressively risen among the ranks to become true stand-out soloists, including Pau Garcia on piano, Lola Peñaranda on tenor sax, her brother Gerard on trumpet, Sander Theuns on alto, and Luc Martin on trombone. There’s little doubt that their time with the SAJB will prove to be a foundation for long careers spent knee-deep in jazz.

In this the 20th year of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, the project — for which neither the students nor their parents are asked to pay for rehearsals, instruments, or recording sessions — it remains a marvel of jazz education and performance among the youngest musicians most of us would consider unlikely to devote so many of their waking hours to the art form.

While the future of the SAJB is undetermined beyond 2027 – Chamorro hesitates to look too far into the future –it is highly recommended to listen to and appreciate the music (over 1,000 videos on YouTube, and dozens of albums) that Chamorro and his nearly 100 students since 2006 have given to jazz fans around the world.

Garry Berman

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For over twenty years, Garry Berman has written books and articles related to pop culture and entertainment history. He has contributed articles to Beatlefan magazine, Nostalgia Digest, and History magazine. In addition to his non-fiction work, he also writes comic novels and screenplays.He is also co-administrator of the Facebook group page Friends of Sant Andreu Jazz Band. Visit him online at www.GarryBerman.com.