Jazz Home | Chris Bruya | Vijay Singh | John Harbaugh | Ensembles | Festival | Handbook

CWU has four full jazz bands with approximately 18 positions in each band. Positions in each group are acquired by competition for a specific slot (such as Bari Sax, or Trumpet 4), where the student must out perform the other people auditioning for that slot.ALL PLAYERS NEED TO SIGN UP FOR A TIME SLOT ON the JAZZ BOARD!

PLEASE LET PROF. BRUYA KNOW IF YOU WANT TO AUDITION BUT HAVE A CLASS CONFLICT FOR ANY OF THE AUDITION DAYS & TIMES!!!

Throughout the process there may be callbacks of various players and/or decisions posted. Watch the Jazz Message Board for all information about the progress of auditions. 

Spring Auditions

Jazz Bands and Vocal Jazz Rhythm Sections

Due to the large number of challenges that now occur regularly, the jazz area directors have decided to move to a re-audition format for the jazz bands and vocal jazz rhythm sections each quarter.

For spring quarter 2013, Jazz Band 1 (all positions) and Vocal Jazz 1 Rhythm Section will be locked due to spring quarter gigs and travel issues.

Therefore, these groups will re-audition all positions:

Jazz Band II                            Vocal Jazz II (rhythm section)

Jazz Band III                          Vocal Jazz III (rhythm section)

Jazz Band IV

We realize that some students have schedule details that would prevent them from participating in certain ensembles. It is our hope to work with students to alleviate the scheduling issue so all that want to can participate.

Auditions for all positions will include these materials:

• Jazz Audition PDF File
• Jazz head to be played with a backing track
• Sight read a passage
• Improvise on F blues (medium up tempo, 2 choruses)
• Each player will have 5 minutes to complete the above audition and decisions will be made based on the performance.
   

For rhythm section, there will be additional materials to the above:

• Drums: sightread a big band chart, play a mambo, samba and afro-cuban 6/8
• Bass: read and walk a line on changes, and on a straight-8th chart
• Piano: read and comp changes, swing and straight 8th.
   

We will also want to listen to combinations of players, if possible.

• Tuesday, March 26th in Prof. Bruya’s office
  11:00am – 1:00pm SAXES,
  1:00pm – 3:00pm TROMBONES
  7:00pm – 10:00pm, ALL RHYTHM SECTION PLAYERS (in the jazz room)
• Wednesday, March 27th in Prof. Bruya’s office
  11:00am – 12:00pm STRAGGLERS,
  12:00pm – 2:00pm TRUMPETS