Young--and Nervous--Echoes of Count Basie

Sure, Count Basie’s Orchestra did it all the time. But few high school bands have done what the San Clemente High School Jazz Ensemble did Sunday at Chapman University.

The ensemble played a Count Basie tune arranged by Sammy Nestico, with Nestico in the audience. It happened on a lush sun-swept lawn outside Memorial Hall as part of the university’s first Invitational Jazz Festival, “A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.”

The day included performances from six high school bands, a trio of fine ensembles from Chapman, the unveiling of sculptor Miriam Lodder’s bust of Fitzgerald and an evening performance in the hall by vocalist Nnenna Freelon and trio.

Nestico, the distinguished composer-arranger with numerous film, television and recording credits, wrote for Basie beginning in the late ‘60s, helping define the band’s latter-period, characteristic sweet sound. He and fellow Grammy-winning composer-arranger Bob Florence each heard three of the high school ensembles during the afternoon, then took them to a nearby band room for coaching and comments.

San Clemente music director Andy Magana and his 21 students took something of a risk in playing Nestico’s instrumental arrangement of “Alright, Okay, You Win.”

As they set up outdoors, the 74-year-old Nestico was inside addressing 100 students and a handful of interested observers. In answer to a query about how it feels to hear bands play his arrangements, Nestico said that listening to the Basie ensemble was “the greatest.” But, he added, “by the time it’s played by some high school bands, it’s gone downhill a little bit.”

Uh-oh.

Not to worry. The San Clemente band warmed up with a modern, beat-minded piece called “The No Scuffle Shuffle,” then swung impressively through the Basie number and a Stan Kenton-inspired piece and closed with Joe Zawinul’s familiar Weather Report anthem “Birdland.”

Nestico gave hearty applause and flashed a thumbs-ups to Magana. Back in the band room, he was all smiles and compliments, singling out the soloists and heaping praise on their instructor. Preparing to lead the ensemble through a section of his arrangement, Nestico urged the horns to “really bite that quarter note,” then hummed it out for them--”doo-bop!”--before counting them down.

“There’s one thing that makes us here all alike,” he said later. “We all love music. You may not go into music as a career, but this working in a unit, being part of a band, is something that will go with you all your life.”

He warned about “sharks” in the business and urged the soloists to listen to recordings of great players; then band members crowded around to get his autograph on their sheet music.

San Clemente senior and alto saxophonist Kimberly Gordy, whose solo Nestico had praised, said the band felt the pressure of performing before Nestico. “Our director said, ‘Now, don’t mess up in front of Sammy.’ We’d all heard so much about him in class and at clinics from adjudicators. So we were a bit more nervous than usual.”

Nestico, who plans to teach at the University of Georgia next fall, was equally enthusiastic. “Didn’t they do a fantastic job? I just want to motivate the students, instill that love of music in them that we have. That seems to be the best way to spend the last years of my life.”