The 35th San Diego Jazz Party was held at the San Diego Hilton Del Mar the last weekend in February. The rains pelting the Southern California area did not dampen the spirits of the numerous attendees who were eager to listen to and celebrate the many well-known tunes from the Great American Songbook.
I attended a few of the master classes held on Friday afternoon before the beginning of the festivities. Over 20 Mission Bay High School Preservationists arrived for the instructions and many of them had been at the San Diego Jazz Fest at Thanksgiving with music director JP Balmat. Their school trip included a visit to New Orleans this past April and they are planning a trip to Japan soon. Their fund-raising party was held that week and they have reached their goal for the monies needed to send the Preservationists to San Diego’s sister city in Japan… Yokohama! I usually like to visit as many of the classes as possible, but this year I stayed mostly with Dan Barrett’s (tb) class that had Stephanie Zavala-Lemarroy on violin and Gregory Flores on trombone with two additional students. Both Stephanie and Greg were in San Diego last November and are very excited to have Yokohama on their to-do list.
Dan emphasized the importance of understanding the structure of the tune to be played. A typical 32 bar arrangement can be in the form of AABA as far as each 8 bar measure is played being
