EDMONDS, Washington (STPNS) -- The Meadowdale High School jazz band can swing it with the “big boys.”

Meadowdale’s jazz band placed second in the AAA division of the 48th annual Clark College Jazz Festival last weekend at Clark College in Vancouver.

“It kind of sets a name for ourselves for the rest of the year at Clark,” said junior Todd Hollenhorst, the band’s pianist.  “It’s good to show what we’ve worked on and what we [still] have to work on.”

For almost 50 years, Clark College has held a three-day competitive festival for more than 60 high school jazz choirs and bands from the Northwest, according to the college’s Web site.   This year’s festival ran from Jan. 28-30.



“We compete against the ‘big boys’ at that festival,” said Meadowdale’s band director David Hawke.

The “big boys” are schools from the Puget Sound area – like Garfield and Roosevelt high schools – with strong jazz programs, he said.  “It ups the bar.”

“The Puget Sound area is kind of the hot bed for big jazz.  Jazz education got rooted in the Northwest with people like Quincy Jones.  We’ve competed in L.A. and Reno, and all over the place the judges are always saying, ‘Boy, you guys in the Northwest are lucky.’”

First place in the AAA division went to Mountain View High School of Vancouver, while the festival’s sweepstakes trophy was awarded to Garfield High School of Seattle.  

The Edmonds School District was well-represented at Clark College.  Mountlake Terrace High School’s jazz band also placed second, in the AAAA division of the festival.

Junior Dan Hipke of Meadowdale also won the Outstanding Musician Award for his electric guitar solo in the ballad “Kelly’s Eyes.”

Meadowdale’s jazz band was one of about 14 bands in the AAA division to play three songs in front of three judges and a live audience last Saturday.  The band performed the bluesy “I Be Serious ‘Bout Dem Blues,” “Kelly’s Eyes,” and an up-tempo “Wind Machine.”

“Kelly’s Eyes” is a trumpet ballad, but the band arranged it for guitar, so that Hipke could play his award-winning solo, Hawke said.  And with “Wind Machine,” he said, the judges were impressed that the band “took it at such a burning tempo.”

In the finals competition, the top three bands of the day played two songs and were ranked for first, second and third place.

“We probably should have had first, but we all know how that goes,” Hawke said.  “It’s like ice skating.  It’s what the judges are looking for. We definitely had the crowd.  We were exciting, we were moving them, but maybe they (the judges) liked the soloist in the other band a little better.”

Clark College President Bob Knight presented the trophies to Saturday’s finalists.

“Getting second at the festival is still good,” Hipke said.  “Just even placing at the festival is good because of the other competition, because the Northwest is such a big center for jazz education.”  

Starting in January, the jazz band gets competitive.

The band placed first in the AAAA division of the Riverside Jazz Festival in Auburn on Jan. 23.  In Auburn, Hipke also won the Outstanding Musician Award for his solo in “Kelly’s Eyes.”

“That was the warm-up for the big festival at Clark College,” Hawke said.  “We worked the bugs out, the kinks out.”

Next Friday, Feb. 5, the jazz band is competing in the Viking Jazz Festival at North Kitsap High School in Poulsbo.  The band placed first at North Kitsap in 2009.

“I’m just looking forward to taking what we have now and just taking it to that next level,” Hollenhorst said, “and just having fun because that’s what it’s about.”