Brass notes blast out the just-opened door at Boxley’s Place on a snowy Friday. Snow has cancelled school for the day, but it hasn’t stopped the music for some 30 student musicians, who are all assembled for one reason.

The reason is Wycliffe Gordon, a famed and acclaimed trombonist, composer, and educator, who is visiting the Valley specifically to instruct the Mount Si High School Jazz I students in the art of “the greasy blues.”

Gordon is one of three judges of the Swing Central Festival in Savannah, Georgia, which Mount Si was selected to compete in this year. Only the top 12 bands who audition for the festival are chosen, and Mount Si, in its first year to audition, was among them. As part of their participation, the band  received the in-person rehearsal session with Gordon, who composed the piece “Grease Bucket,” which they will play at the festival.

“You guys sound nice,” Gordon says after a final run-through, but the seasoned jazz man also had lots of advice for the students. “Don’t play anything definite… everybody has to be responsible for listening.” He also reminded them of the song’s name, for a reason.

“You know what a grease bucket is, right? It’s the bucket that sits on the top of the stove in most homes… I wrote this song, I just called it ‘Grease Bucket,’ so it’s the greasy blues.”

During the break, Gordon strolls along the stage, singing to himself, clearly enjoying his teaching role. The 19 Jazz I students, and the small group of middle school musicians who came to watch, though, are all intensity.

“It’s a really great opportunity. I haven’t had an experience like this before,” said Kyle Seymour, a senior.

Freshman J.T. Hartman concurred. “You get the guy who actually composed the song, telling you how he wants you to play it.”

It’s a major accomplishment for still-small Mount Si High School, and one that the students seem to be handling with complete composure. There are no awestruck faces, no autograph requests of Gordon, not even much chatter during the break. These kids are getting used to success, and the perks that follow it.

Adam Rupert, instrumental music director at Mount Si, said the students will also be featured in the KPLU “School of Jazz” CD, which highlights local outstanding jazz bands at the high school level. This selection also came with a professional musician’s consultation, and his performing with them on the track they recorded for the CD. The band also frequently receives top ratings at area music festivals.

All of this recognition is nice, Rupert says, as is the school’s growing reputation for excellence in jazz, but it is all external to the program he’s worked in for 10 years.

“Our goal is really to play music, really hard music, the best we can,” he said. “There’s never a moment when the kids aren’t challenged.”

Rupert directs about 120-130 students in one of his jazz or concert bands, which, he says, is close to his capacity in both physical space and teaching time. Vocal music students see Ryan Harris, who also doubles as the drama instructor.

One step down, to the middle school level, the number of students in band is more than doubled. At Twin Falls Middle School, which has the largest enrollment count of the district’s three middle schools, band director Matt Wenman sees 275 students a day in one of three choirs, three concert bands, and two jazz bands. Take one more step down, and every single student through the fifth grade, about 3,000 students, has class with the music teacher in each of their buildings.

Until three years ago, every fifth grade student at North Bend Elementary School took first-year band for their music instruction. The other four elementaries had all made band an extra-curricular activity, but North Bend music teacher Dan Thompson kept it as part of the school day — with no cost for instruments, he noted—until the school district decided each elementary school should be consistent with their band programs.

Thompson, who has taught at NBE for 26 years, was disappointed with the change. It meant adding music classes for fifth graders to his schedule, and because of the extra demands on his time, handing direction of the band over to a musically trained parent volunteer.

“It was kind of hard, losing that, because I love teaching band,” he said.

However, he does still see a bright side to it.

“For those students who do band before school, now there can be even more music,” he said, since they also get music class with him during the day.

“The bottom line is we want to create a love and appreciation of music for all the kids,” he said. “If you get them now (in elementary school) you can have them for life.”

Wenman, Rupert, and some active music parents like Carol Reitz and Glynis Rogers, agree with half of that statement, but they are concerned about the number of students who leave the music program when it is no longer part of the regular school day.

“How do you know you don’t like playing an instrument unless you try it?” asked Reitz, who leads the Snoqualmie Valley School District Music Coalition with Rogers.

More students leave at the transitions to middle school, where they choose a band, choral or art/tech “track” that expands their options but excludes the other tracks, and high school, where students again have many more options.

“There is attrition,” said Wenman, who’s taught at Twin Falls for four years. “And the biggest attrition happens from the school jumps, when you jump from building to building, or from teacher to teacher.”

Rupert says in a typical transition year, less than 50 percent of middle school music students will pursue music, band or choral, at high school.

Both Wenman and Rupert feel that they are close to their maximum capacity for students, and that they are far from alone.

“We’re exceeding capacity in many music courses across the district,” said Wenman, and the district is forecasting big jumps in enrollment in another three years.

One might think that they and other music teachers would be relieved by that high attrition rate. They aren’t.

“No, we don’t want attrition,” Wenman said. “Anything less than 85 percent retention—and we’ve never even had close to that, but anything less than that is something we’re always trying to improve.”

“Every student needs the opportunity to be taught music, and every student needs the equal opportunity to take music at any level,” Wenman added, going on to explain the unique offerings of a music program in schools. Music defines culture, and fosters teamwork, accountability, discipline, attention to detail, and has been found to support learning in other academic areas.

“That’s not why music should be taught. Music should be taught for the intrinsic value of music,” Wenman continued. “If I wanted to make kids better at math, I’d be a math teacher…. Music is something that makes us more human, not just more smart.”

From a purely pragmatic perspective, music classes are also important because they are so cost effective.

“It’s called reverse economics,” Reitz explains. “On paper, it looks like it’s going to save you money to cut the music program, but in reality, if you’ve got a good music program, that means you’re handling big numbers of kids.”

Specifically, individual music teachers are handling those kids, in much larger numbers than other academic programs can manage. One music teacher can direct 60 to 70 students in a band, but it would take two or more teachers to instruct them in that same period through a science lab or vocational class.

Referring back to the attrition rates Wenman noted that “It’s to the economic advantage of the district to have huge music programs by the time they get to middle school and high school.” If those students had left band in middle school, or their freshman year, they would be in other, smaller classes.

“It literally will cost the district more if they cut fifth grade band,” Wenman said.

Information like this is what Reitz’s music coalition has begun providing to the school district, through annual status reports on music in the district, but she emphasized that it was a proactive move.

“Nobody’s talking about cutting music right now,” she said.

That makes the timing perfect for the coalition, which formed last year after Reitz and several other music parents attended an advocacy workshop.

The coalition, Reitz feels, will be a place for parents and teachers to come together in a unified position, enabling them “to talk to the board and administrators, wherever they exist, about the importance of having music as a curricular item, … music as an ongoing entity from K through 12,” she said. “The mission is equal access to music education.”

She hopes the coalition can partner with the district, without being adversarial, to foster and improve the music program in the district.

For details on the coalition’s activities, find them on Facebook.

Above, Music advocates in the Snoqualmie Valley, parent Carol Reitz, Twin Falls Middle School director Matt Wenman and Mount Si director Adam Rupert hope to nurture band through a parent-led advocacy group.

Below, Dan Thompson has taught music at North Bend Elementary school for 26 years and until three years ago, directed up to 100 fifth graders annually in their first year of band. Then, the district moved to make band offerings consistent at the elementary level, as an extra-curricular activity, and Thompson, with no time to take on the before-school program, handed his baton to volunteer parent Lorraine Thurston.

Above, Mount Si Jazz students Josh Supkoff, Lizzy Young, Kyle Seymour, Boone Hapke and Ben Wheeler blow their horns during an early morning practice. Below, the jazz band’s trumpet section.

Below,  Wycliffe Gordon, a famed and acclaimed trombonist, composer, and educator, instructs local students in the art of “the greasy blues” during a recent visit to Boxley’s Place in North Bend. The restaurant and club hosts local students every Tuesday night with its “Future Jazz Heads” concerts.