Saint Xavier University’s jazz band surprised students with an impromptu parade to celebrate Mardi Gras.
Dr. Shawn Salmon, Director of the SXU Jazz Band and Grand Marshal of the parade, mentioned the reason for this parade was “Partly inspired by our trip to New Orleans and I thought it would be kind of fun to bring a bit of New Orleans back to SXU, in particular, to do it during Mardi Gras season.”
This performance comes only a month after the jazz band’s trip to the Jazz Educators Network, a jazz conference in New Orleans.
Salmon discusses how many of the students who performed in the parade are in various different bands and ensembles around SXU causing a fair number of students to swap instruments for the parade.
“… Some of them even picked up other instruments for this like our bass trombone got a sousaphone and our guitarist and bassist grabbed trombones because they had played [that before]. It was fun to collaborate and come together,” according to Salmon.
Because music was the focus of this parade, Salmon was eager to talk about the process of deciding what song was chosen for this parade and what went into organizing it.
He mentioned that a big factor was the song needed to be easy to memorize because you cannot use a music stand during a parade.
Salmon decided on “Do Whatcha Wanna,” a famous song by the Rebirth Brass Band; he found this while looking for different songs on Preservation Hall’s, a historical jazz venue, website.
The song was composed of three simple melodies but, as is the tradition with jazz, there was a lot of improvisation with students playing off of one another. The leads of this band are the trumpets. Salmon said this had to do with “the New Orleans’ [belief] of ‘the Trumpet is King.’”
Salmon mentioned that before performing for the parade, he sent the video of Rebirth Brass Band playing the song to the jazz band members with comments like “Watch this” and “This is going to be us on Tuesday.”
There was one formal practice session, before the parade performance.
The students in the diner responded positively to the band.
Third-year Carlos Lara found it interesting that they chose to do a parade and states, “I really enjoyed it. I thought it was very energetic and out of nowhere and very spontaneous. I think it caught us all [by surprise].”
He commended the band not only for the variety of instruments on display but also their ability to move around the diner as much as they did.
Salmon only had positive things to say about the parade.
He states, “It was a lot of fun. I brought some beads. There is always a cat with an umbrella and so I grabbed an umbrella and some beads to hand out to people. I tried to have some Mardi Gras there on Fat Tuesday to close out the season. In New Orleans, it was Mardi Gras while we were there [back in January]. This was the last day for you to get your indulgences as Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. Maybe we started a new tradition since everyone seemed to have a good time. We will probably do it next year.”