DuPage youth jazz ensemble chasing New York glory

The jazz stars of tomorrow can be found in DuPage County.

The Youth Jazz Ensemble of DuPage will put its chops on display at the 31st annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival, taking place April 30 through May 2 in New York City.

This marks the third consecutive year the Wheaton-based group will be among the top 20 high school jazz bands traveling to the Big Apple for this national competition and the fifth time in the ensemble’s history.

Held at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, the competition and festival are dedicated to the music and legacy of Duke Ellington. The festival will feature educational activities and big band competitions, culminating in a final concert and awards ceremony that celebrates the next generation of jazz artists.

Since 2015, the group has been the only one from the Chicago area to reach the finals.

The youth ensemble was founded in 1998 by director Robert Blazek, who retired from Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 as a band director in 2015. It is made up of students from 15 different high schools; in the beginning only three schools were represented — Wheaton North, Wheaton Warrenville South and Riverside-Brookfield.

Blazek said the program has since taken on a life of its own as the word gets out among aspiring student musicians.

Students are selected through an audition process that brings together top players in the area, he said.

Blazek said the band focuses on the jazz classics popularized by bands led by Ellington and Count Basie.

The organization has been the cradle for professional musicians, among them saxophonists Anthony Bruno and Alex Beltran, trombonist Luke Malewicz and trumpeter Kellin Hanas.

He said a group of 25 will be traveling to New York. The band will play three pieces for the festival, one mandatory piece from among eight to 10 new charts, with the option of choosing the others from a library of songs.

“You have to make sure one of the three at least is by Duke Ellington,” he said.

One of the pieces will be “The Gypsy,” which features a challenging part for alto saxophone that will be played by Wheaton North’s Michael Shebar, whose accomplishments have included all-state honors from the Illinois Music Education Association.

Shebar, a senior, joined during his junior year. He said he felt he was being introduced to a whole new world of music. Suddenly, it was about more than sitting in his room and listening to recordings.

“This opened a whole social network of kids in my area that are playing jazz at a high level and I can be social with and play gigs with,” he said.

“Kenya” will feature trombonist Adam Fleming. The band will also play the Ellington piece “Harlem Airshaft.”

Before the band heads to New York, it will host a send-off concert at 4 p.m. April 26 at Shepherd of the Prairie Lutheran Church, 10805 Main St., Huntley. The guest artist will be trumpeter Derrick Gardner, who founded The Jazz Prophets and has performed with the Count Basie Orchestra. He is director of jazz studies at Northwestern University.

The ensemble is holding a fundraiser to offset the costs of the trip to New York. To learn more, visit www.yjed.org.