Students strike up the band with Wynton Marsalis

PINE PLAINS — Students involved with the Stissing Mountain High School Jazz Band were offered the chance of a lifetime last month when The Stissing Center organized a master class for the students with internationally acclaimed jazz musician, Wynton Marsalis.

Months before students took to the stage, Pine Plains music teacher Joseph Deveau said he was approached by Hollis Bart, secretary of The Stissing Center, and asked if the jazz band would be willing to participate on some level in the upcoming Construction Concert Series to benefit The Stissing Center. Without revealing Marsalis’ name, she told Deveau that an artist of high status was coming to perform at The Stissing Center in the fall, and that it wanted to include the Pine Plains community and school district. After he learned the identity of the mystery performer, Deveau said he was excited to get the jazz band involved, once he talked with students and their parents.

“He promotes jazz in any way, shape or form at any opportunity,” said Deveau. “He just believes in this music so much. He just lives jazz, so he wants to share it with everybody. It’s hard not to feel the significance of a person who’s that talented and that engaged in an art form when you’re around him.”

Bart reached out to Deveau again at the end of the 2018-19 school year, this time to talk about the possibility of holding a master class with Marsalis. In preparation for their time with the charismatic  musician, the band practiced on three to four occasions during the summer and then held rehearsals the week of the concert.

“It came as a surprise, really, because we didn’t know about it until a couple months before, and it was just really, really great,” said Matthew Arent, a sophomore at Stissing Mountain Junior/Senior High School and a member of the jazz band.

Come the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 7, the students warmed up in The Stissing Center before the master class began at 1 p.m. Over the course of the two-hour class, Marsalis engaged students with a new approach to working on their jazz pieces, bringing a new kind of spirit. 

“He really talked about expression in the music and how that’s one of the biggest things in there,” Matthew recalled when asked which aspects of the class stuck out for him. “Just how to play it, really.”

Along with the knowledge they gained from their experience playing with Marsalis, students received complimentary tickets to the concert later that evening and were invited to stay for the sound check.

“All the students were affected by it. They had just a positive experience,” Deveau said. “It validates almost everything I do, whether it has to do with jazz… because the power of the arts is a life-changing and a life-affirming force, so it makes my words ring a little more true. When you get validation like that from a world-class artist and you see the energy on the students’ faces, that’s just affirming and it’s inspiring.”

“We knew about Wynton’s talent and obviously, since he offered to perform for us for free so we could use his performance as a fundraiser, we knew about his generosity,” said Stissing Center Executive Director Brian Keeler, “but when he decided he wanted to hold this master class for the high school students, we realized we were also dealing with someone with a generous humanity.”

Watching Marsalis work with rising musicians from the comfort of The Stissing Center, Keeler hailed the experience as extraordinary, not only from The Stissing Center’s perspective but also from the students’ perspective. As Marsalis walked off the stage to speak to the students seated in the audience, Keeler said, “For me, it was a realization of everything we’re trying to do at The Stissing Center, and that is to bring art and civic life and community together under one roof so we can all share in the human experience.”