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High school bands play on - Competition educates students about music business

Published:Wednesday | March 4, 2020 | 12:00 AMYasmine Peru/Senior Gleaner Writer
2019 champions, the Alpha Institute, in celebration mode.
Pembroke Hall High, JBSB 2015 winners.
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Organiser of Jamaica’s Best School Band (JBSB), Rayven Amani, is enthusiastic about the upcoming season of the inter-high school stage band competition. Now in its seventh year, the JBSB will run from March 12-April 19; however, the actual work started from as early as November last year, with the pre-competition tour to all participating schools by music industry professionals.

“We use it as a means of educating the students about the business of music and it also serves as a kind of audition and a getting-to-know-you,” Amani told The Gleaner. “We have partnered with the organisations which are best equipped to provide this knowledge. This season, representatives of our partners – Jamaica Association of Composers, Authors & Publishers (JACAP), Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO), Broadcasting Commission and the Vinyl Record Collectors Association – engaged students on topics like ‘Protecting Your Intellectual Property’ and ‘The Role of Publicist’.”

She emphasised that the competition’s focus is stage bands, as opposed to marching bands and steel bands. Amani also noted that it is not open to past students, as this will give those bands an unfair advantage. “Some of the really good bands still have past students as members. And the reason for this is that they get jobs to play outside of the school community and so they want to retain their best players. However, for this competition, all the members of the band must be current students of the school. Some schools will shy away from the competition because of this, but the truth is that every year, we see so much development among the members of the band, it is amazing. The students transform from lacking in confidence, not making eye contact, being unsure of their talent, to a place where they take command on stage. It is just heart-warming,” she said.

Fourteen high schools from across the island, mainly outside of the Corporate Area, have signed up to enter this year, among them six first-time entrants, which include Mile Gully, Bellefield, Lennon, Denbigh, St Thomas Technical and Spanish Town. Both seasons one and four winners, Pembroke Hall High and Bog Walk High (now Enid Bennett High), respectively, are back.

St Catherine High, Cornwall College, Mona High and Papine High round out the schools who will do battle for the title. Last year’s winner was the Alpha Institute, the only band to take the title twice.

Four rounds

As usual, the bands will be taken through four rounds of performances for judges Lloyd Parks and Ibo Cooper. Amani, who is also a singer and recording artiste, expressed her gratitude to Cooper, Parks, Dean Fraser and Frankie Campbell, who have been tremendously supportive of the programme since its inception in 2014. Also on board are Kumar Bent of Raging Fyah band, Hector Lewis of Zinc Fence, Nigel Staff of Ruff Kut and musician and conductor, Stingray.

“The fact that so many professional musicians who tour with bands are taking the time to participate in this project is a real plus. This helps to inspire the students, and what we are seeing is that many of them actually end up attending Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts after completing high school, and some are now working with top acts like Buju Banton, Agent Sasco, Koffee, Queen Ifrica, Ikaya,” Amani shared.

This year, for the first time, there will be a cash prize, which will see the top three bands sharing over half-million dollars. Other prizes include musical instruments, trophies courtesy of sponsors CHASE Fund, the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Vinyl Record Collectors Association, Music Mart, and Irie Yute Records.

Season 7 will be officially launched next week Thursday.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com