Senior becomes first SHS student to enter All-Stars jazz ensemble

Facing three judges in a small room, senior Matthew Tung, a member of the school’s jazz band and brass captain of the marching band,  raised his trombone to play the two required jazz pieces he had chosen for the audition. One week later, in late August, Tung learned he was the first ever Saratoga High student to be accepted into the award-winning San Francisco Jazz All-Stars Big Band.

According to the SFJazz website, the Big Band is comprised of 24 of the finest young Bay Area jazz musicians, selected annually by competitive audition.

SF Jazz Education offers two jazz performance programs: the Monday Night Band and the High School All-Stars, which is further broken down into the Big Band/Orchestra and the Combo. This year, Tung was accepted into the Monday Night Band for the third time, as well as the All-Stars Big Band.

The auditioning process had several parts. Musicians were required to prepare two songs — one blues and  one jazz standard — to perform in front of three judges.

For his Monday Night Band audition, Tung played “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” by Abbey Lincoln, and “Au Privave” by Charlie Parker. For his All-Stars audition, he played Parker’s “Blues for Alice,” and Richard Rogers’s “Have You Met Miss Jones,” his favorite out of the four.

“The most challenging part is just having to play the songs unaccompanied,” Tung said. “It’s really difficult to keep your place in the song’s form. That was definitely the part I had to spend the most time practicing.”

The audition also included a sight-reading portion, in which Tung was given new music to perform on the spot, with no prior practice.

“I was pretty nervous,” Tung said, “but this wasn’t my first time doing the audition, so it wasn’t too bad.”

Tung is by no means new to SF Jazz. He was first introduced to the ensemble through his private trombone teacher as a sophomore. This was when he first started playing in the Monday Night Band, a community ensemble for intermediate to advanced level musicians ranging in age from 14 to 75.

“It’s pretty cool,” Tung said. “You meet a lot of different people. There’s professional musicians, or people who are doctors or engineers. Then there’s other students like me. So you get a really nice variety in the musicians that join the band.”

In his junior year, Tung continued playing in the Monday Night Band, and was accepted into the All-Stars program as an alternate. Now, he makes the trip to San Francisco twice a week, rehearsing for about two hours every Monday and Tuesday night for the Monday Night Band and All Stars.

With driving time and practice time added on, SF Jazz takes a huge chunk of time out of the week, which is “pretty rough with homework,” Tung said.

However, Tung is grateful for his supportive family and his private teacher, who has been encouraging him to try out for the past couple years.

Currently, at the weekly rehearsals, the SF Jazz ensembles are practicing charts, or songs, that they might perform at future concerts, such as the Holiday concert in December at the Miner auditorium, which holds up to 700 audience members.

In college, Tung plans to continue playing music in some way, whether it be playing trombone or jazz, or entering music technology or the music business.

“My favorite part is just being able to play jazz with other people that love it as much as I do,” said Tung. “It’s just really amazing how much I can learn from others, especially in the all-stars group with people my age.”