When Pat Miles auditioned for the choir at Clinton Middle School, he received an ambivalent response.
“The teacher said I had a voice for band,” he said.
So Pat took band, and now leads the band program at Clinton schools with an energy and joy that inspires his students. On Thursday, May 11, the Jazz Band will share that spirit with the public at a community concert at 7 p.m. at the Elks Club, 115 W. Franklin, on the north side of the Clinton Square.
The concert is free, and is put on in conjunction with the Clinton Arts Council, which supports the CHS band program by donating their money and time.
“This is a way to say thank-you for everything they do,” Pat said.
Pat graduated from CHS in 2002, attended the University of Missouri, then taught band in Greenridge for eight years, before he took the job in Clinton, where his wife works. He plays a little bit of everything, he said, but when he was in high school, played the saxophone.
CHS had a jazz program, he said, but there were only about 15 students in the jazz band. The year he started teaching at CHS in 2015, that had dropped to six and seven students, Pat said, and the marching band had 35 students.
He started his eighth year last fall teaching at CHS, he said, where the marching band now has 96 members.
The jazz program has also grown — about 30 musicians fill the rehearsal room every weekday morning at 8:35 a.m. for Jazz Band class. That number makes it more of a big band, Pat said.
He also has what he calls his “jazz crew” in the middle school. Pat, who said he loves all kinds of music, said his strength is improvisation —there’s nothing sadder than a jazz solo where someone is rigidly following the music, he said.
“The students in middle school learn chords,” he said.
“That’s how they break it down for jazz.”
Last week, the high school jazz band was going through the set they will play for Thursday’s concert. They started off with “Funky Stuff,” then swung into “Good Times,” followed by “Afternoon,” a mellower tune which features solos by Gabe Simmons and Lilianne Simmons.
“Afternoon” is one of the students’ favorites, they said. The other is “Birdland,” featuring a solo by Alex Crawford. But only the trombone players like Birdland better, clarinetist Melanie Wood said. Melanie said she’s perfectly fine getting up early to come and play with the band, which starts with the symphonic band rehearsal an hour earlier, because the music lifts her spirits.
“I’m happier when I come,” she said.
All the horns are featured in the set’s next piece, the theme from Peter Gunn, with its familiar cadence. Then it’s “Slim Chickens”, a jazzy tune with solos by Molly Hauk and Makenna Beasley.
Rounding out the set is “Emergency Stopping Only,” a quirky tune with a swirling melody that prompts Pat to direct the band with rolling hand motions, then beat the time with his hand on his chest, mimicking the heart-beat of the rhythm. The piece features a trombone solo by Cory Garrison.
Graduates of the CHS band program include Quincy Crawford, who played the trombone in the regular band and the Jazz Band last year. Quincy is now in the Marching Mizzou at the University of Missouri, Pat said. Shannon Simmonson, from the Class of 2021, is in a trumpet performance program at McKindrey College in Illinois, he said.
Several seniors in this year’s band program, including Gabe Simmons, plan to go into the band program at State Fair Community College, Pat said.
Donations will be taken at Thursday’s concert to buy new Sousaphones for the band. Sousaphones are a big version of a tuba that are easier to play when standing, because it wraps around the player’s shoulder, with the bell projecting forward, producing a bigger sound. The Sousaphones will replace two smaller conventional tubas, which have, as Pat put it, “lived their life.”
This school year, the Clinton musicians played for the Chamber of Commerce banquet and the Clinton Senior Center dinner and auction. He describes the community support for the CHS band program as “insane,” and said that he feels lucky to be teaching at a high school where the community is “in it to win it with us.”
Pat also said some of the high school bands and their teachers they see at competitions are serious. But wherever they go, he said, the CHS band members “bring the party.”
“They are the fun group,” Pat said.
It was his older brothers who advised him to audition for the choir, Pat said. They took band – Eric played the saxophone, he recalled, and Jason “lasted for about one semester.”
