Jazz

Prologue

I don’t remember everything Mr. Undergrove taught me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah - you know every teacher’s dream is probably that every single one of their students hangs on to every idea and lesson that they are trying to bestow upon them, but let’s be honest: life doesn’t work that way.

Think about it: what would the world look like if every kid understood and comprehended what was presented to them in school and applied it to their life?

The federal government would probably be really efficient because members of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Presidential Cabinet would actually remember that those that don’t remember history are bound to repeat it, and if I’ve learned anything about history and government, it’s that the government loves to repeat history. 

There’d be little signs of heart disease because after hearing about the importance of exercise and maintaining a healthy diet, people would actually apply those two practices to their lives.

I imagine there would be less smoking-related illnesses out there because c’mon, they start teaching you in kindergarten that smoking has the potential to kill you.

The economy would be thriving because everyone would take all those financial skills they sling at you in math and business classes and put them to use when it comes to spending money on things that you don’t need and can’t afford. 

I imagine there would be better quality music for the world to listen to. Don’t believe me? Turn on the radio. There’s a lot of bad music out there.

Imagine a world of sports where every athlete actually listened to their coach, including the athletes whose parents are yelling at them from the sidelines to not listen to what the coach was telling them to do.

The truth is this: we don’t remember everything our teachers teach us. We may remember it long enough to take a test, or maybe even long enough to take a final at the end of a semester or school year, but if it’s not immediately applicable to your life, there’s probably a good chance you’re going to forget it.

Poof. Gone. In one ear, out the other ear, whether it’s in a week, a month, or a year. 

What you do always remember is how a teacher made you feel on the inside.

And that can go in a variety of directions.

My 7th grade science teacher? She yelled at me on the first day of school for writing on a paper in pen instead of pencil. The second day of school she gave me detention for writing my name on the left side of the paper instead of on the right side. On the third day of school, she told me that I was worthless because I typed my homework on the computer and printed it out instead of writing it by hand; when I tried to explain to her that my parents had just purchased a new printer and I wanted to try it out, she made me sit in the hall for the remainder of the class.

That was just in the first three days of school. I endured an entire year of that teacher. 

I had science during third period in 7th grade. Every day, right at the end of second period, I’d start to get so nervous that I would feel sick and get a headache. Every day, by the time I got to fourth period and third period was behind me, my headache and nervousness would go away.

So when I think about my 7th grade experience, I can’t remember anything I learned in science class, but I do remember how that teacher made me feel, which was that I was below dirt. 

On the flip side of all that science anxiety was my 7th grade English teacher, Mr. Hunt. Mr. Hunt was young, energetic, waved his hands in the air a lot, and when you asked him a question, he actually appeared to be listening to you. He actually listened! How many adults out there can you name that will actually listen to a kid in middle school? Like listen to them like they’re the most important person in the entire world?

Not a very long list, is it?

Sometimes Mr. Hunt would just start singing in class, almost like they do in musicals, like the moment captured him and he just had to put his hands in the air and sing out loud. He’d jump up on his desk, throw his hands up, and just wail. He didn’t care if he was on key or not. Can you imagine? In front of a bunch of 7th graders too! 

Mr. Hunt even dressed up as Count Chocula on Halloween that year. We had been reading about monsters and spirits and whatnot all through October; sure enough, when we walked into Mr. Hunt’s class on the 31st, there he was, decked in all brown: a brown cape, brown shoes, brown pants, a brown tie, and he had even sprayed his hair brown with a temporary hair dye. He was super excited when some of us realized that he wasn’t Dracula, but instead he was Count Chocula, as in the General Mills cereal. Mr. Hunt didn’t break character either; he spoke with a Transylvanian accent from the start of class until the bell rang.

Mr. Hunt was the coolest teacher in all of 7th grade.

And then, he left. 

We came back from Thanksgiving break to find Mr. Hunt’s room completely cleaned out of all his belongings. A new teacher, Mrs. Gourd, took Mr. Hunt’s place. She was bland, quiet, and boring.

Mrs. Gourd was so boring that I’m not even sure if her name was Mrs. Gourd. I think I remember that her name was Mrs. Gourd, but that could be because ‘Gourd’ rhymes with ‘bored’.

Where’s Mr. Hunt? we asked Mrs. Gourd.

I’m not sure. One of the 6th grade teachers said he moved to the mountains. 

The mountains? Why would he move to the mountains when he could teach us? I mean, the man dressed up as Count Chocula! How cool is that? Why would he ever want to leave us?

But do you see the difference there? My science teacher was the bane of my existence for an entire year, while Mr. Hunt brought a lot of joy to my life and the lives of a lot of students. He made me want to be at school; he made me feel like I mattered. 

And Mr. Hunt was only my teacher for four months.

Mr. Hunt had been the highlight of all our lives in 7th grade. After he left, life went back to being the struggle that most 7th grade students go through when just trying to survive middle school.

But then Mr. Undergrove came into our lives in the fall of 1995. 8th grade. He was our new band teacher, and we were lucky enough to grow an entire year under his direction.

Mr. Undergrove always talked about how playing a song was a lot like telling a good story. There’s the hook that pulls you in, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and then Mr. Undergrove’s favorite part: the ‘point of no return’, which is where the listener realizes the emotional weight of the song. 

It’s a lot like watching a movie, he’d say. You know that part of the movie where the main character or hero has that earth-shattering moment and all of time seems to slow down? I mean, every movie has that moment. Go ahead and think about it: you’re watching a 90 minute movie, and right around the 75 minute mark, boom: something happens. But it’s not just anything; it’s gotta be something huge. Like massive. Maybe even something thrilling. Maybe a big secret is revealed. Maybe something absolutely terrifying happens that makes the hero rethink everything they’ve learned, and then they push on through to save the day. Maybe it’s something that’s extremely personal, like a moment of self-discovery.

"In Ghostbusters, our heroes realize they need to cross the streams of their proton packs to defeat Gozer. In Back To The Future, Marty realizes he has to warn Doc Brown of the Doc’s eventual death. In Superman, the big blue Boy Scout has to fly backwards so fast that he has to reverse time in order to save Lois Lane," Mr. Undergrove would say.

If you can build a song or a performance for the audience the same way you build a movie’s story, they’ll realize it at the ‘point of no return’. Look at the guitar solo in Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Bold As Love’, or George Harrison’s piano solo in The Beatles’ ‘In My Life’. These are moments that give the song a little extra push; it’s no longer a song, but instead a moment, something that you know the listener won’t forget.

That’s what we’re going to try to achieve here: the ‘point of no return’ in music. For you as musicians, and for the audience, like your parents, the staff members of this school, the students at this school that aren’t involved in the band program, and the members of the community that surrounds us.

The point of no return. Yeah, right.

If anything, King’s Hollow Middle School was sitting in the heart of the point of no return.

King’s Hollow Middle School was the hubcap center of one of the worst neighborhoods in our small town. Built in the late 30’s and into the early 40’s, the school’s architecture gave off a gothic vibe with its hand-cut stone statues of gargoyles and angels that decorated the rooftop. Demon heads acting as rain spouts ran parallel to the roof, their eyes bulging from their heads like someone or something was squeezing them entirely too tight. Intricate stone carvings of vines with pulsing thorns outlined the windows that stretched across every classroom. All the windows had bars covering the windows, just like a jail cell. Not only could you go to school and feel imprisoned, but King’s Hollow actually had windows that made the students feel like they were in prison.

A middle school that looks like a prison? If you can’t smell the irony waffling off that statement, something may be wrong with you.

A handful of small intricate holes decorated the front doors of the school as well, kind of like as if someone took a drill and just went wild with making random holes in random places. Some were small, about the size of a dime, and some were large enough to put your entire thumb in the hole.

I had never thought much about the holes at the front doors until the day Stephen, my best friend, pointed out that the holes that ornated the front of the school were bullet holes scoured into the walls from a drive-by shooting from years earlier.

Middle school. Fun times, right?

Stephen was a free spirit who came into my life in 5th grade when we were on the same elementary school soccer team together; Stephen played goalie while I played defender. At least it was like that for one game. 

During the very first game of the season, an airplane heading towards our local airport flew across the sky, which caused our team to lose the game, which led to my dad punching our soccer coach, which led to Stephen and me becoming friends.

It happened in that order. No, I’m not joking.

It was the first soccer game of the season. A plane flew across the sky. Not like a jet liner or something like that, but one of those small local planes, the kind that tend to crash a lot more often than the commercial ones.

Being intrigued by the airplane, surely self-aware that by flying over a local elementary school during their Saturday morning soccer league games would be a giant distraction for all, I watched it stretch and soar across the sky like a giant eagle instead of paying attention to the soccer game that I was playing in. Stephen, playing goalie, was equally transfixed by the airplane, and also took a moment to put his focus on the sky as well. The plane seemed to be just out of our reach above the treelines that bordered our school’s soccer field. 

So there we were: two kids standing on a soccer field, staring up at the sky, looking at some rinky-dink local airplane flying overhead, while our parents screamed at us, our teammates screamed at us, and our coach screamed at us to pay attention as the kids on the opposite team came barreling down the field towards us. By the time we both realized what was going on, the other team had scored a goal as time on the clock expired and secured the opposition’s victory. 

After the game, our soccer coach gathered the entire team around him to let everyone know that he was disappointed in Stephen and me. Then he yelled at Stephen and me that he was disappointed in us. Loud. Louder than a coach should probably yell at a kid. Then the coach yelled at Stephen’s mom when she yelled at the coach to back off. Then the coach yelled at my dad that he wasn’t yelling after my dad yelled at the coach to stop yelling. Then the coach yelled at everyone, both kids and parents, to calm down. 

Everyone got quiet and appeared to be calming down, but then the coach went back to yelling at Stephen and me about his level of disappointment. Then my dad got mad and yelled at the coach to stop yelling again, and the soccer coach yelled at him again that he wasn’t yelling, so then dad took two steps forward and punched the coach right in the chest. The coach went down to the ground, and my dad, well, he just stood over him showing restraint, probably realizing he shouldn’t have punched the coach like that in front of all these kids, parents, and families on a soccer field. Then the coach yelled at my dad some more that my dad was a bully. 

Not long after that, the school told our coach that he couldn’t coach anymore, and that my dad couldn’t come to anymore soccer games. Stephen and I - we could keep playing, but our new coach, another kid’s dad, moved us to midfield and told us to always keep our eyes on the ball, even if an airplane passes overhead.

On the playground the following Monday, I apologized to Stephen for my dad knocking the coach to the ground like he did when the coach was yelling at us. Surely, Stephen had to be as embarrassed as I was about the whole deal, but Stephen wasn’t bothered by it. 

At least your dad was there at the game. My dad didn’t even know I had a game.

Oh.

What do you say to that? ‘My dad didn’t even know I had a game.’ Do you follow up with ‘Why didn’t he know about the game?’ Or ‘I’m sorry’ or what?

He’s got issues, Stephen added. Like mental issues. Depression and stuff like that. He’s just always mentally somewhere else. Like, not living in the moment, or whatever they say.

Oh, again.

But your dad seems pretty cool and all.

Thanks.

Hey, Stephen turned his body towards me but kept his eyes on the ground, do you think your dad could punch our math teacher too?

Mr. Winslow?

Yeah, Winslow. He’s been giving us way too much homework lately.

In the chest, like he did the soccer coach? I asked.

Yeah, the chest is fine, Stephen replied, staring down at his shoes. Or maybe in the face. Whatever.

I nodded. No, face is cool. I’m cool with that. Let me talk to my dad and see what he can do.

Yep, Stephen kicked a rock across the cement of the playground, the face. He watched the rock skip and hop before settling at the edge of the grass. Or your dad could maybe kick Mr. Winslow in the nards.

The nards?

The nards, Stephen confirmed. Just a swift kick to the nards.

The nards. Right. I think I get you, I said, even though I didn’t get him.

Stephen turned around and looked me in the eye, like really looked me in the eye, and could tell I didn’t have a clue to what he was referring to.

"Ya know, like when Wolfman gets kicked in the nards in the movie The Monster Squad?" He leaned toward me on his legs, slanting himself on the playground surface.

I was confused. Monster Squad?

An aura of shock came over Stephen’s face. "The Monster Squad. Like, the movie! You’ve never seen it?"

I shrugged. "Is it like Ghostbusters? I’ve seen that one a bunch of times."

Stephen put his hands up. "No, no, no.  Ghostbusters is not The Monster Squad. The Monster Squad is The Monster Squad. How do you not know this stuff?"

Um... I looked around the playground, I mean it’s just a movie so...

Stephen cut me off. "The Monster Squad is not just a movie! The Monster Squad is the greatest cinematical adventure of all time!"

Cinematical adventure?

Oh jeez, Stephen rolled his eyes. Movie. That’s fancy talk for a movie. I watch a lot of them. Dad’s always too busy, remember?

Yeah, sure, I guess. Look, I just wanted to make sure you were ok with everything that went down on Saturday on the soccer field.

Soccer? Oh, right. Stephen scratched his head. Forgot all about that already. Your dad is going to punch someone else, right? Isn’t that how all this got started?

No, you asked if he could punch Mr. Winslow for you and then you said you wanted him to...

Kick Winslow in the nards! Stephen screamed loudly. Some of the other kids playing nearby looked our direction. "I remember now. And you don’t know what The Monster Squad is. And now those girls over there, Stephen pointed at a group of fellow 5th grade girls, think we’re weird."

Look, I just wanted to make sure...

"That I’m free on Friday night so you can come to my house to watch The Monster Squad? Yes, let’s do that."

I stammered. Wait.....what....huh?

Stephen poked his finger in my chest. "You haven’t seen The Monster Squad. I own the tape. It is now my job to expand your horizons and expose you to why the movie is so amazing, which includes an understanding of Wolfman having nards."

Wolfman had nards?

Stephen raised his voice. Good gosh! Have you not been paying attention? Work with me here! Yes, Wolfman has nards! It’s one of the highlights of the movie!

Wolfman has nards. Got it. I’ll....uh....I’ll...

"Have your mom call my mom. Or I’ll get my mom to call your mom. Set everything up. The Monster Squad. Friday night. It’ll be fun."

Look, it’s not a big deal what my dad did...

No, I owe you. There’s a reason for all this.

What happened for a reason? I asked.

Call it fate. Call it luck. Call it karma. I believe everything happens for a reason. Stephen put his hands in the air and projected his voice. "I believe we were destined to be put on our soccer team together because there are greater forces at work here, and that is that of The Monster Squad!"

Oh.

Again, what do you say to something like that?

So, what’s your name, kid?

Me? My name?

Stephen smiled. No, the name of the guy behind you. I started to turn my body when Stephen added, Yes, you! What’s your name? I mean, I know we’re going to be hanging out on Friday night, so I should probably know your name.

Oh, um... Mitchell. Mitchell Williams. 

Williams? Like Ash Williams, zombie slayer? Stephen asked.

Zombie slayer? No, I’m not...

"Evil Dead. Ash Williams is the main character. C’mon, Mitchell, know your movies."

I...I’m not up-to-date on all the movies.

Stephen put his hands on his hips. Maybe if your parents ignored you more often, you wouldn’t have that problem.

That Friday night, I went to Stephen’s house as planned out by our moms. We watched The Monster Squad in the basement, the old tube television sitting on the floor illuminating the adventures of a group of teenagers as vampires, mummies, and various other monsters descended onto their small town. The highlight of the film: watching Wolfman get kicked in the nards, just as Stephen had promised.

See? Wolfman has nards. Told ya.

From that day on, despite that my dad never bothered to punch anyone in front of us ever again, Stephen became my best friend. Two years later, we were on our way out of elementary school and onto King’s Hollow.

Leaving elementary school had its share of thrills because we were no longer going to be ‘kids’, but upon arriving at King’s Hollow on the first day of school, our attitudes towards the unknown dimension of middle school drastically changed. 7th grade sounded exciting, but 7th grade inside a concrete castle of gargoyles and demons in a gang-infested neighborhood was a lot less interesting than it sounded.

You know King’s Hollow has got to be crazy haunted with all those demon heads and gargoyles and crap on the building. Plus, the whole King’s Hollow doomed family thing.

What King’s Hollow doomed family thing? I asked.

Stephen cracked his knuckles. The King family?  They were one of the richest families in town way back during the Great Depression. Owned the glass factory that was out by the lake. They were always trying to give back to the community, especially during a time when people didn’t have a lot. The Kings had agreed to put the money up for the new school, and construction had started and everything. When the school was on the verge of being done, a crazy ex-employee from the glass factory burned down the King’s house while they slept one night. The whole family died. Crazy stuff.

My eyes grew wide; I was speechless. That is messed up, I staggered out. That’s just, man, that’s horrible. I hesitated. What about the Hollow family?  What was their deal?

Stephen put his hands behind his head. The Hollow family? I don’t know. Beats me.

Why’d you say ‘the whole King’s Hollow doomed family thing’ then?

Stephen shrugged his shoulders. I just assumed they were messed over like the Kings were. Look at all that demon crap going on the outside of that school. And the neighborhood? It’s a war zone. That’s gotta explain some of it, right?

You said ‘doomed family thing’, like there was more than just what happened to the Kings.

It made for a good story. I’m sure the Hollow family was messed up too. Had to be. It’s middle school.

It turns out that nothing terrible ever happened to the Hollow family that put up the money to complete the school. The Kings had taken the entirety of the bad luck with the burned down house and all, and the Hollow family, a wealthy family of farmers, paid for the remainder of the construction of the new school.  Thus, the King’s Hollow name was born into existence.

I’m sure if the Kings or Hollow family knew that the neighborhood that would grow up around the school was going to be terrible, they’d have never built the school where they built it.

But now, here we were: in a questionable neighborhood, in a scary-looking school, with an entire legion of hormonal, moody velociraptors known as ‘teenagers’ roaming the halls. 

That’s a great recipe for disaster, right?

Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t be mad at Mr. Hunt for leaving to go to the mountains. I mean, I would have if I had had the opportunity to leave King’s Hollow.

But Mr. Undergrove came into our lives in 8th grade, and we had some adventures with him, all the way into high school.

AUGUST - 10TH GRADE

Maynard Ferguson plays on the stereo. It’s ‘Hey Jude’, a song we all know, but still, it’s different. It’s bubbling something unseen, like the music is a slow boil that is fizzing just below the surface of our ears. Not in a painful way, but in a way that makes everything seem different. The lights above us seem duller; our seats are now slightly uncomfortable. I mean, it’s still the band room, but it’s no longer the band room, ya know? We’re somewhere else now without having left the room. 

Mr. Undergrove slightly nods his head along with the beat. Just barely. Not enough to really notice, but enough to notice that he wants to nod along in a more dramatic way without worrying what some high school kids will think of him. He’s holding back. His eyes don’t lie: he wants us to like this song. He wants us to really like this song. He wants us to play this song. As a band. Not as a bunch of kids playing instruments in a band. As a band. There’s a difference. 

It’s 3rd period. Jazz band class. Northern Kent High School. 1997. 10th grade. There are only a handful of us, and, for the most part, we’re all products of Mr. Undergrove’s teachings from when he directed us in middle school at King’s Hollow. Now, he’s back in our lives, directing us again, this time in high school at Northern Kent, of all places. The band director from before Mr. Undergrove? He got canned. Well, not really.  He kinda got canned, but also got promoted. Rumor was he couldn’t teach a brick how to be red. We’ve all had one of those teachers before: a teacher that just can’t teach, no matter how hard they try. The Northern Kent band director was one of those teachers, so the district shifted him to the central office where he didn’t have to teach anymore and had a comfy desk to sit at, and then moved Mr. Undergrove to Northern Kent to ‘fix’ what was left of the band program. We’re a part of what’s left.

We’re the kids that liked band, but didn’t want to be part of the whole ‘marching band’ deal. We were the classy band kids. ‘Classy’ may be not the right word, but it sounds better than ‘somewhat sophisticated’. No, that’s not it either. Hey, I’ll put it this way: we were in band together, but we weren’t about to put ourselves out there publicly enough to be a part of the marching band getup. I mean, playing from behind the comfort of a podium on a stage is a lot less intimidating than marching in a parade, or, dare I say, the middle of a football field. Imagine your whole school sitting in the stands, all there to see a football game, and their added perk is watching you during halftime carry your instrument around at a weird angle while marching some weird half-Irish jig while playing a song from the 70s that no one really cares about? Sheesh, I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that. None of us in jazz band would.  Anyone could be in marching band; let the classy kids handle the jazz. Sound fair enough?

There was Kirby & Justin on percussion. My grandma always said to me that the word ‘percussion’ sounded silly when the word ‘drums’ sufficed; this isn’t my grandma’s story, but she’s got a point. Kirby and Justin, they banged on the drums. Ian played guitar, David on the bass guitar, Kevin played the sax, while Josh, Brooks & Stephen played the trumpet. Phillip, a senior, played the trombone right alongside yours truly. Not a lot of us, but we were a class of a bunch of classy high school guys playing jazz. Classy - still not the right word.

The solo kicked in on ‘Hey Jude’; our eyes grew wide as Maynard Ferguson’s trumpet pitch went higher and higher. Deep down, I felt like the windows in the band room should be rattling. What note is that? I asked.

Double High C, Mr. Undergrove responded, a grin smeared across his face. Maynard Ferguson was a master of the double high C.

Brooks’ eyes widened as the solo hits its climax. Dude has some lungs, he commented.

As the song wrapped, Mr. Undergrove, still floating that silly half smile / half smirk on his face, hit the stop button on the stereo and turned his chair back towards us. He pulled out sheet music from a folder on his podium and distributed it to everyone in the band. Holy Saint Francis, Stephen muttered, we’re doing this, huh?

We certainly are, Mr. Undergrove crooned back. And all you trumpet players, we’re going to get you into Ferguson’s double high C territory; that’s our goal. When someone hears us play ‘Hey Jude’, I want them to not think about Maynard Ferguson but instead the Northern Kent Jazz Band.

Mr. Undergrove, Stephen perked up, I hate to break it to you, but most people think of The Beatles when they hear ‘Hey Jude’.

Mr. Undergrove sighed. In the jazz world, it’s a little different.

What world are we living in? Stephen asked. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or being serious.

Stephen, how can I even answer that question? Mr. Undergrove responded. "Look, everyone, it’s a solid, recognizable song that is moderate enough for us to master and complicated enough to really push us to