WMU Jazz Band qualifies for state competition

WINFIELD — The 11 students of the Winfield-Mt. Union Jazz Band started the year with a simple goal: "not finishing last." But as one of only 15 1A teams invited to the state jazz championship in April, the group has blown that expectation out of the water.

“I think the energy of the group is certainly great,” Winfield-Mt. Union Band Director Lindsey Pogmore said. “They didn’t feel any pressure because our goals at the beginning were to just do it and have fun, and I don’t think that they felt the pressure that a normal group would have.”

The band is easily an underdog, with a smaller size and younger students than most of the competition.

“We have a lot junior high kids,” Pogmore said. “For probably a third of our band, this is the first year that they’ve ever done any kind of jazz playing at all, so the learning curve was pretty steep. But they stepped up and put in the work, and now we’re headed to Ames.”

The championship is the culmination of the school year’s jazz competitions. The top two finishers from each state district competition automatically qualify, but three more schools receive “wild card” invitations, the equivalent of at-large bids to the event.

“To get a wild card invitation, you can get one several different ways,” Pogmore said. “Third place finishers, or you can win another independent jazz festival throughout the state, or you can place higher than someone who automatically qualifies … we placed third at our district competition and we placed higher at a festival than another couple of bands who automatically qualified.”

The school jazz band, composed of seventh through 12th-graders, now has until April to prepare for the contest. Pogmore said that would involve lots of practice, and occasionally bringing in guests for what she called “jazz clinics.”

“Earlier this year we brought one of the professors of jazz studies from the University of Iowa down to work with our group,” she said. “He came to one of our rehearsals and gave us some tips and helped us work on a few different things with our music. We were hoping to reach out and have a couple other folks come spend time with our band and just give us a different perspective.”

Pogmore said the band would keep the same, low-pressure mindset it had for the rest of the year.

“I think we’re going to approach it the same way we have for our other events of the season,” she said. “We don’t have any expectations of how we’re going to place, we’re just going to have a good experience and play at the highest level that we can play and that’s that … we’re going to keep trying to improve so that we can play at our best.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com