OUSD Jazz Festival at Oakland Tech

In honor of African-American History Month, the Oakland Unified School District will be hosting their annual Jazz Festival! The event will begin at 7:00pm in the Oakland Technical High School Auditorium. The concert will feature jazz bands from 11 Oakland public middle and high schools as well as the wildly popular “Big O Teacher Jazz Band”!

Admission is free!

The Oakland Unified School District will present its 7th Annual District-Wide Jazz Festival on Thursday, February 12 at 6:30 PM in the Oakland Technical High School Auditorium (4351 Broadway Ave. Oakland, CA). The evening will feature performances by 10 OUSD middle school and high school jazz bands, and the OUSD Music Teacher’s Big Band. The festival will conclude with all 200-plus musicians taking the stage at once to perform Dizzy Gillespie’s signature tune, “Manteca,” featuring Bay Area Afro-Caribbean Percussionist, Javier Navarette. Admission is free.

Originally intended as a concert to highlight OUSD jazz bands and raise the overall quality of jazz performance in OUSD, the Jazz Festival began in 2002 with five participating schools. At the inaugural event, guest musicians John Handy, Dee Spencer, and Khalil Shaheed taught master classes in addition to performing as guest soloists at the evening concert. Since then, the festival has grown to include 10 OUSD middle and high school jazz bands and more than 200 student musicians each year.

OUSD Music Programs, like the Jazz Festival, have experienced robust growth in recent years. The surge in interest is due in large part to the Oakland community, which passed local Measures E and G to support – among other programs – music and arts in the schools. As a result, participation in Claremont Middle School’s music program has grown from 23 to 140 students in just 3 years; interest at Oakland Technical High School and Edna Brewer Middle School has also spiked sharply, while Westlake Middle School, Bret Harte Middle School and Alliance Academy continue to produce stellar jazz bands that provide a strong pipeline of musicians for OUSD high school programs.

That steady stream of talent has proven it can play with the best in regional jazz competitions. For the past two years, the Skyline High School Jazz Band has captured second place at the Reno Jazz Festival, one of the largest events of its kind in the entire country. Skyline will participate in the festival again this year from April 23-25. For a preview, please join OUSD when 10 middle school and high school jazz bands, including the Skyline Jazz Band, the OUSD Music Teachers Big Band, and special guest – Afro-Caribbean percussionist Javier Navarette – take the stage at OUSD’s 7th Annual Jazz Festival.