Last March, Lexington High School’s jazz band attended the Clark Terry University of New Hampshire (UNH) jazz festival. The event holds massive historical significance within the jazz community, as it was created to honor Clark Terry, a pioneer of American jazz. 

“A jazz legend, someone who is in history works. He was at this festival, it was incredible,” Mr. Aramati, a band teacher at LHS, said. 

The festival isn’t representative of just Terry, who recently passed away, but also jazz music as a whole. 

“[The festival] is…specifically for middle school and high school students,” Justin Armati said. The festival is meant to showcase talent among youth in America while simultaneously paying homage to jazz legends through their performances. 

To practice for the festival, the band practices in different sections, grouped by instrument type,then later come together to compliment each other and create a cohesive sound.        

“The places where you see an almost immediate synergy is within sections,” Aramati said. 

The band’s performance in the festival is not solely based on individual talent but is more largely credited to their team synergy.

“An ensemble where the band members don’t know each other, or perhaps don’t even notice each other is never going to sound as good as a musical ensemble when the band members know each other and…get along,” Aramati said. 

In order to create an environment that fosters team-bonding and participation, Mr. Aramati works to incorporate elements of both work and fun, thereby allowing students to socialize while growing as artists. 

“Everybody’s very friendly…since we all have a pretty good connection [it] allows us to perform better as a whole,” Matome Hsu, a sophomore and guitarist in jazz band, said. Students find the environment at practice to be beneficial to their performance as a group, allowing for different individuals and sections to perform coherent pieces of music.

“Since we all have a good connection that allows us to trust each other during performances, which in turn allows us to all perform better as a whole, and as individuals,” Hsu said.

I think the band is really close knit…we all have a good time. That’s my favorite part,” Aramati said.