Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The annual Essentially Ellington Festival returns next week to Jazz at Lincoln Center. Its 30th year. The festival celebrates the music of Duke Ellington, and it does so by inviting high school jazz bands to perform from around the country, and this year from around the world. To help us preview the festival right now in the studio, we have one of the 30 bands selected this year, fresh off the D train, the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music. The students are here to play for us live. Let them know you're here. Hello?

Students: Hi.

[laughter]

Alison: Essentially Ellington is open to the public on May 7th through the 11th. They also have in studio the band's director, Penelope Smetters-Jacono. Nice to meet you.

Penelope: Hi. Thanks so much for having us.

Alison: And Todd Stoll, vice president of education at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It's nice to meet you.

Todd: Nice to meet you. Good afternoon.

Alison: Penelope, before we get started, can you name everybody in the band real quick?

Penelope: I would love to. On saxophone, we have Nicholas Haughton, Sophia Salvatierra Paz, Joseph Sakic, Lissandra Reyes, and Brian Benegas. On trombone, we have Justin Carillo Damian, we have Jeremy Asiedu, and Story Edwards. On trumpet, we have Malay Powell, Chelsea Mendoza, who I'm going to give a shout out to. Today is her 18th birthday.

[applause]

Penelope: Isabella Borges and Kayla Garcia. On piano, we have Jose Morales and Christina Rodriguez. On bass, we have Eduardo Ortega Jr, on guitar, we have Fin Rossiter, and on drums, we have KJ Donovan and Isaiah Laws.

Alison: Whew. Got them all.

Todd: I want to say that's the most impressive thing I've seen.

[laughter]

Todd: That's amazing. No notes, no nothing.

Alison: What are you going to perform for us?

Penelope: We're going to kick it off with Oclupaca from the Latin American Suite.

[MUSIC - Duke Ellington: Oclupaca]

Alison: You just heard students from the Celia Cruz High School Big Band performing the music of Duke Ellington. They were selected to participate in Jazz at Lincoln Center's 30th annual Essentially Ellington Festival happening May 7th through the 11th. I have the band's director here, Penelope Smetters-Jacono, as well as Todd Stoll, vice president of education at Jazz at Lincoln Center. What does what we just heard tell you why it's important for kids to learn about Duke Ellington?

Todd: Wow, that's a pretty big question. [chuckles] Duke Ellington, arguably our greatest American composer, his music is so rich. It's funny, I was thinking about what this piece represents, because you have the influence of Central and Latin American, you have the African Diaspora, and then you have the quintessential piece of American music, which is the blues. You have that change in the middle of it, and it goes to the shuffle beat, which is the perfect example of the African 6/8 mixing with the march beat, and that shuffle beat, that's like the American thing. You hear that across all genres of American music.

Duke Ellington's music teaches us so many lessons from our individual soloists, and how important your individual voice is, to the idea that sacrificing for the sake of a group, like a band can't swing without individuals sacrificing, something that maybe is sorely missed in our country these days. Then also just the fact that this blues are written into this, blues was written into everything Duke Ellington did, and that's facing adversity with persistent optimism.

Alison: Celia Cruz opened in 2003. You were one of the founding members, one of the founding staff members. What was important to you when you started the music program there?

Penelope: Our founding principal, Dr. William Rodriguez, had a vision for a school in the Bronx. Previously, if students wanted to study music in high school, they had to go down to Manhattan, and so he felt very strongly that we should have somewhere for our Bronx students to study and be able to go to that level. It was just very important to have a home for that in our borough for our students when we opened.

Alison: What do you see as the role of Celia Cruz?

Penelope: She passed the year that we opened. Of course, she's a great influence. Remember that she was-

Alison: Of course.

Penelope: -also very into education. Just the influence of someone who did so many wonderful things in music, and having her as our legacy to uphold has been phenomenal.

Alison: Todd, what does a school band need to have to be selected for Essentially Ellington?

Todd: [laughs] A director that's actually really committed to it. That's where it starts. Our band directors, many of them, have been involved in this process for not just years, but decades. Penny, you've applied for this competition how many times? 15?

Penelope: [chuckles] Not quite that many.

Alison: But you've put quite a few.

Todd: Yes, but you've been submitting for a while.

Penelope: We've been trying to hack away at those charts for a while.

Todd: The music is so sophisticated and nuanced and technically challenging that you have to have a great-- I had a band director just emailed me a month ago and said, "If I had a choice, but having great soloists or a great ensemble or a swing and rhythm section, which would it be?" My answer to him was, "Yes, you have to have all those things have to meet." It's a labor of love for us. We have schools from all over the country and now all over the world that have been playing this music for 30 years. We've published almost 200 charts that were never available before, and over a million kids have played this music now. We're over the moon this year for the 30th anniversary.

Alison: What did it sound like when you told them they had made the Essential Ellington Festival?

Penelope: Oh, absolute melee.

Alison: [laughs]

Penelope: The whole band room completely erupted. I cried, everyone cried, I think. It was absolute melee, everyone out of their seats. It was just a great energy and a really, really exciting moment for us.

Alison: What did it mean to you to make it this time? In person, too?

Penelope: That's exactly it. The first time we made the finals ever was in 2020. We were able to cross that bridge and then not get onto the stage. That was a really rough time, obviously, for the entire world. This time, this group of students are the students who actually did their auditions for me, these seniors auditioned for me via video. We were still not in person when I met these children as eighth graders. They're a really, really special group who's gone through so much. For these to be the students to be able to come out of a pandemic, bring their musicianship to such a high level, and then be recognized as one of the top 30 bands in the world is a feeling that's completely indescribable.

Alison: My guests are Todd Stoll, vice president of education at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Penelope Smetters-Jacono, director of bands at Celia Cruz. Penny has brought her students along with us from the Celia Cruz Big Band. We're going to hear two more songs. Yes?

Penelope: Two more songs.

Alison: What are we going to hear?

Penelope: We're going to hear I Didn't Know About You, followed by What Am I Here For?

Alison: All right. Let's hear the Celia Cruz Big Band. They're switching, the drummers are switching. She's coming over here, and she's going there.

Todd: May I mention that next year is the Celia Cruz centennial-

Alison: Next year's Celia Cruz centennial.

Todd: -and we're planning two concerts honoring Celia Cruz in Jazz at Lincoln Center season next year. The details will be available on jazz.org very soon.

Alison: Love that.

[MUSIC - Cheryl Freeman and Ella Fitzgerald: I Didn't Know About You]

Ms. Luz Velazquez: I ran around with my own little crowd

The usual laughs, not often, but loud

And in the world that I knew

I didn't know about you

Chasing after the ring, on the merry-go-round

Just taking my fun where it could be found

And yet what else could I do

I didn't know about you

Darling, now I know

I had the loneliest yesterday, every day

In your arms

I know for once in my life, I'm living

Had a good time every time I went out

Romance was a thing I kidded about

How could I know about love

I didn't know about you

Darling, now I know

I had the loneliest yesterday, every day

In your arms

I know for once in my life, I'm living

Had a good time, every time I went out

Romance was a thing I kidded about

How could I know about love

I didn't know about you

I didn't know about you

Penelope: Ladies and gentlemen, that was Ms. Luz Velazquez on vocals.

Alison: Luz, that's for you. What's the next song we're going to hear?

Penelope: What Am I Here For is up next.

Alison: Let's check it out.

[pause 00:17:18]

[MUSIC - Jade Bird: What Am I Here For]

Alison: That's the Celia Cruz Big Band performing live. The band is competing this year at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington Festival. It's happening May 7th through 11th. I want to give a shout-out to two of our engineers, Irene Trudel and George Wellington, for putting this all together. Todd, as you were thinking about the 30th anniversary of Essentially Ellington, you opened this up globally. Tell us why.

Todd: Duke Ellington was a universal humanist who traveled all around the world for years and years, and he wrote many, many pieces of music based on those travels, the Far East Suite, the Latin American Suite. He believed that this music was a universal gift, and so many of his musicians were from other places. Towards the end of his life, he had a trumpet player from Stockholm. He had a tenor player from the Canary Islands. He had a trombone player from Puerto Rico. He believed in that. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra believes in that. Wynton Marsalis believes in that. We tour internationally a lot. We've met directors around the world and thought, "What better time to invite the world in than the 30th anniversary?"

Alison: Playing jazz at Lincoln Center, it's no joke, Penny.

[laughter]

Penelope: No joke.

Alison: Have you thought about how you're going to prepare for the day?

Penelope: We've been thinking about that for months. [chuckles] When it comes down to it, we're just so honored and we feel so grateful to be amongst such excellence. When it's time to get out there, we're going to go and we're going to do what is our best and be out there to cheer everyone else on that's doing this. We're really excited for that.

Alison: Tell us how it goes. Is it a competition? Is it more of like everybody for everybody?

Todd: It's actually a competition. There's something about the pressure that we think focuses kids and focuses people, but it's friendly. The thing that's really impressive if you come to the festival and competition, which is why we put festival there first, because it's a celebration, the kids cheer each other on. The competitive spirit is really there, I think, to hone the concentration and the focus, but there's a jam session in the dinner the night before. We see the kids by instrument. They're with kids from all over the world, and really, we break those barriers down. The enthusiasm they show for each other is pretty impressive.

Alison: My guests have been Todd Stoll, vice president of education at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Penelope Smetters-Jacono, director of bands at Celia Cruz, as well as the students in the Celia Cruz Big Band. They were selected to compete at this year's Jazz at Lincoln Center's 30th Essentially Ellington Festival happening May 7th through 11th. Thanks for coming in, y'all. You do talk. Yes, you talk.

[applause]

[laughter]

Alison: I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you. I will meet you back here next time. Thank you so much.

Penelope: Thank you.