Article by Todd Matthews

For a little more than five years now, Seattle-area high school jazz bands have earned reputations as places for outstanding talent and excellent instruction -- largely due to their successes at the Essentially Ellington Competition held annually at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. When Garfield High School received an honorable mention in 1999, it was a sign of things to come: Roosevelt High School placed third in 1999, second in 2001, first in 2002, and second earlier this year. Similarly, Garfield received another honorable mention in 2000, placed second in 2002, and placed first in 2003 and 2004. Hot on their heels: Mountlake Terrace High School (honorable mention in 2002; third place this year) and Shorewood High School (honorable mention this year).

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Drummer Sean Hutchinson, saxophonist Ben Roseth, and trumpeter Tatum Greenblatt. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MARY LEVIN)

Indeed, the region's high school programs are remarkable.

But what becomes of all this talent after graduation?

For an answer to that question, you should head to The Triple Door on August 9 to see alto saxophonist Ben Roseth and trumpeter Tatum Greenblatt lead a quintet featuring the finest young musicians to recently come out of this region's high school jazz programs.

Roseth and Greenblatt attended Washington Middle School, graduated from Garfield, and headed to the East Coast for college: Roseth, 20, will begin his junior year at Tufts College and the New England Conservatory of Music this fall; Greenblatt, 23, graduated from the New School, and is preparing to study jazz at Juilliard this fall. Joining them in this quintet will be 21-year-old pianist Drew Pierson (Newport High School graduate, now attending Juilliard and Columbia), 21-year-old bassist David Dawda (Northwest School graduate, now attending New York University), and drummer Sean Hutchinson (Roosevelt graduate, transferring from the University of Southern California to the New England Conservatory this fall).

The quintet has an interesting history: though the musicians are still young, their participation in the high school jazz programs means that each has worked with one another since they were teenagers. The result is a combination of technical skill, familiarity with one another, and songwriting talent that isn't seen too often at such a young age. Indeed, in 2004, Roseth, Hutchinson, and Dawda formed a trio called The Here and Now to record Take Flight -- an album that showcased that rich combination (eight of the 10 tracks are original compositions).

I recently met with Roseth and Hutchinson at a coffee shop in downtown Seattle to discuss their approach to writing and performing, participation in the high school jazz scene, and what audiences can expect to hear this month at The Triple Door.

TODD MATTHEWS: Describe the quintet and the music you perform.

SEAN HUTCHINSON: One of the most important things about the group is that everybody has just been friends for a long time. We've scattered across the country, but this is kind of our chance to come back together, play, and hang out. We try and schedule things like this to give everyone a chance to fly back to Seattle and pick up where we left off for two weeks.

MATTHEWS: Do you get the chance to rehearse at all?

BEN ROSETH: Last time we performed at The Triple Door, we had one rehearsal in New York. It was me, Tatum, and Drew. Then we had two rehearsals with me, Sean, and Mike. And then we had one rehearsal the day of the show before we performed that night.

HUTCHINSON: We also e-mail the music around. Ben's actually been writing a lot of original music, so we e-mail it out to check it out. This time we're actually going to have solid rehearsal. Everybody is meeting in Seattle days before the show.

MATTHEWS: It sounds like the group will perform originals, for the most part. Is that right?

ROSETH: I've been writing a lot. We just played a show with a different group the other day. I think most of the tunes were my originals. We played 12 tunes over the course of the night, and maybe eight were things I had written.

HUTCHINSON: This performance at The Triple Door will probably be the heaviest with originals. We've always had a balance of arrangements and re-harmonizations of standards mixed in with originals. This performance will probably be the heaviest one with Ben's originals. I think he's really coming into his own as a composer. Not that the stuff before wasn't great, but he's starting to have a repertoire of cohesive tunes that don't sound like anything else you have heard before.

MATTHEWS: What do you think of all the attention that the local high school programs receive? You aren't necessarily the first to come out of the program, but it seems like a lot of attention is on you in terms of coming out of the high school program and going off to college.

ROSETH: Members of the press have been really generous to high school bands in terms of getting them exposure and following up with those people after they leave. We were lucky enough to get some of that press one year ago when we did our first Triple Door show. We kind of have it set up where we go out of town and we're off everyone's radar for a long time before we come back and make a big fuss: We only have one show. If you're our friends, you had better come. We're going to play all our best stuff.

HUTCHINSON: The high school thing is very important, though, because it's hard for young people to get involved in jazz. Everybody in this quintet is lucky enough that our parents listened to jazz. If we didn't come from such a strong community like that, we might still be playing. Maybe. But as a result of all the attention and importance that people place on it in Seattle, it becomes OK for someone in middle school to like jazz. It's not popular, not mainstream music. But we were able to get serious about it at such a young age. That's the reason we can be working on our group concept and songwriting and things like that at our age, rather than still having to grapple with a lot of other fundamental things.

ROSETH: I think the education I received at Washington Middle School and Garfield High School really gave me a foundation for everything I have done since then. The way Clarence Acox and Bob Knatt --

HUTCHINSON: -- and Mr. Brown.

ROSETH: -- and Mr. Brown, although I don't have first-hand experience. The way these guys approach music is that jazz is an art form that requires a lot of skill. The purpose of it is not only for musicians to enjoy, although that certainly is a part of it. The purpose is to connect it to the people you are playing for. You want to get in touch with the music so that you can get in touch with the artistic aspects of it. That basic philosophy, even though the music I write and choose to play is very different from Basie and Ellington big band stuff, is still very strong inside of me. I still feel that basic philosophy strongly. Another lesson that I learned from music by Basie and Ellington is that I should always try to write things that are original without sacrificing the accessibility.

HUTCHINSON:That concept represents what we do on another level. At the time that music was written, jazz was the popular music. That was the music then. It makes sense for us now to stay true to that idea of playing music for people. We try to adapt it to all the sounds that are happening now. A big part of what we do involves taking a jazz scenario, or that way of telling a story -- that kind of instrumentation -- and then kind of juxtapose all the other sounds and rhythms that we like to listen to and enjoy. For me, that's what I'm about.

ROSETH: It just gives our music more relevance. Essentially, I'm a traditionalist at heart. This morning, I got up, made myself some tea, sat out on my porch, and listened to Hank Mobley's Soul Station. That's where I'm coming from. However, I still want to write and play music and speak to people in a context that's alive now. I don't want jazz to be a retro phenomenon. The way we can avoid that is by incorporating things that are older into new kinds of instrumentation, new kinds of rhythm, and new ways of approaching improvisation that makes jazz accessible and modern to people who don't know Basie or Ellington, who didn't go to Garfield or Roosevelt. These are the people we're trying to get in touch with, and we want to get in touch with them on their terms.

MATTHEWS: You came up through the middle school and high school big band programs. Now you're in college and doing a lot of trio and quintet work. Has it been difficult switching over to a small-group setting?

HUTCHINSON: We were playing small-group the whole time we were doing that. Big band is a really unique experience. It's so much fun. At the same time, I think we both feel, not that we don't express ourselves as well, but we don't fully express ourselves unless we're kind of incorporating a small-group way of playing. So the whole time that we were playing big band at school, we would get together outside and play small-group stuff. And that's the reality of being a musician: there's not much big band. It's hard to put together a big band and find work. It wasn't really so much a transition. We were into both all along. I still love to play in a big band when it comes up, which is very rare, but that we don't fully express.

ROSETH: Musically, it's a big conceptual shift. The first format we started playing in outside of big bands was the trio: saxophone, bass, and drums. Or a duo: saxophone and drums. We played a lot of duos for many years. We went from this big, highly constructed environment where there's very little room for freedom and individuality to a place where there are no rules. There's no boundary in a saxophone and drum duo in Sean's basement. Trying to construct order without those preset boundaries has been a real growing experience. As we add more instruments, now that we're at the quintet stage of the show, it's like moving back toward big bands. There's more arranging, more specific harmony parts, and less absolute freedom. There's more planning.

HUTCHINSON: There are more specific roles. When I'm playing in a trio or duo, I'm playing drums. But in a sense, I'm playing the role of all the accompaniment. There's this whole broad thing of so many options. When you're in a quintet, it's closer to a big band. Sure, you have freedom and you want to be expressive and dynamic, but you really can't lose sight of your role because you have this whole larger thing. If you don't approach it that way, it's not going to work.

MATTHEWS: It sounds like it's not so much better or worse -- it's just different.

HUTCHINSON: It's just different. One of the reasons we're doing this quintet now is that it's an easier sound for people to grab a hold of. We love to play in a trio. It's so much fun. There's so much room to hop around between these roles. In the quintet, we're trying to play different kinds of music and make an individual statement. But you can still just grab a hold of that sound. It's easier. It's full and familiar. Like we were saying, people might not have a strong background of listening to jazz, but they can associate with it.

MATTHEWS: It's interesting that you have this arrangement where you go away to school, and then come back to Seattle to perform. It gives local audiences a chance to watch you develop as musicians. Does that happen in other places?

HUTCHINSON: I wouldn't say that it wouldn't happen anywhere else. But I would definitely say that there's something very special happening in Seattle that allows this to happen. It definitely makes a strong statement about the kind of community Seattle is.

ROSETH: It's a direct result of the high school programs, and we are products of that. People in the Roosevelt and Garfield bands still keep tabs on each other. Since we're still pursuing music, they want to hear about what we're doing every now and then. When we come back, we're just a few steps down the road from where they are now. Possibly it's a glimpse into the future for people in high school now.

HUTCHINSON: Hopefully we can make it a little less intimidating for some of the kids who are in the high school programs and thinking they might want to play music professionally. It's daunting when you're in high school to think that there would even be a small possibility that you could continue to do this for the rest of your life. Not that we have been doing it for too long outside of high school, but at least they can see that if you believe in yourself and go for it -- and work hard -- you can make your own thing happen.

MATTHEWS: What can we expect to hear at The Triple Door?

ROSETH: I think we're going to try and do a lot of my originals, things that have been written in the last year-and-a-half, all of which are mother-approved. My mom is my biggest fan and my best critic. She's not a musician. She's not really a jazz aficionado, though she likes jazz. She knows what she likes, whether it's jazz or Celtic music or anything else. I'll always play music for my mom before I write it in pen. One of the phrases she uses when she doesn't like something is, ‘That sounds like loud insect music.' She's said that to me countless times. ‘Mom, what do you think?' She says, ‘That sounds like loud insect music.'

MATTHEWS: So hopefully no loud insect music at The Triple Door [laughing].

ROSETH: [laughing] Hopefully no loud insect music at The Triple Door. But what that makes me do is reconsider things. My mom has a very strong ear for music. She knows what she likes and she doesn't pull punches. She's not just going to tell me everything is fine. She'll tell me if she doesn't understand it. And there's a problem if she doesn't understand it, because I am trying to play music for non-musicians, she is the perfect sample audience. So then I'll re-write it and say, ‘What do you think?' She'll say, ‘OK, I like that. It sounds better.' I wrote a song right at the end of school, and I played it for her when I got back to Seattle. She said it sounded like Irish Folk music. That was great for me, because my mom loves Irish Folk music. If she can understand it in that way, that's great because somehow I tapped into this melody that exists in some other world, that people are going to be able to understand outside of the jazz context. I hope many of the songs I write have that kind of connection. I want them to have a flow, a vibe, to create their own concept. I think the goal of many composers is to create their own language. If you think of someone like Coltrane or Mozart, those guys wrote their own language and wrote their songs in that language. When you hear Mozart, right away you know it's Mozart. And yet everything is different. Each piece has intrinsic value. But I just started writing a year-and-a-half ago, so I'm nowhere near that level.

MATTHEWS: But a lot of your influences are in Bebop and straight-ahead styles, right?

HUTCHINSON: I would say the influence of the traditional jazz in the music we've been playing recently is less audible in the actual composition. You can hear it in some of the harmonic structures. But I would say that influence is more in the way of a storytelling approach to playing a song, and how we conceive the arrangements and improvise on them. I would say that's where more of that influence is rooted. But in the song itself, there are influences of soul, hip-hop, rock – everything. You wouldn't listen to the music and say, ‘That sounds like Soul Station.' When Ben starts playing, though, you'll think, ‘Yeah, he's listened to Soul Station.' It's just one of many influences.

This article originally appeared in Earshot Jazz