All jazzed up, nowhere to go

A Las Vegas high school jazz band that earned a coveted invitation to a prestigious international music festival couldn't raise the money to go.

Members of the Valley High School jazz band say they're still shocked that no one would sponsor their trip in a city full of fat-cat power brokers and high rollers.

"This town is too materialistic for anything involving the arts, culture or history," 18-year-old trumpet player Stuart Hardy said.

Bass trombone player Adam Peplinski added, "I feel a little let down. This city is just not that into jazz."

The Valley band won an Outstanding Nevada Ensemble award last year in a Reno competition -- high marks in an event in which about 200 groups from around the western United States performed. That caught the attention of officials with the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, arguably the most heralded jazzfest in the world, held in July.

Valley High was to represent the United States at the festival and possibly bring international attention to Las Vegas.

Students needed to raise about $165,000 for 45 students to make the summer trip. But months of fund raising and attempts at sponsorships failed, band director Nate McClendon said.

The group could muster only $25,000, even after about 20 fund-raising gigs. The group played every day for two weeks during Christmas break at the MGM Grand Hotel Casino and even released a compact disc, "Valley Jazz In Your Face."

"When May came around, it got really scary," McClendon said. "We tried to cut the number of students going, and we cut back our itinerary and the length of time we were going to stay. It still just wasn't going to happen."

The Montreux event came and went earlier this month, without the Valley band.

Fortunately, officials with the Telluride Jazz Festival in Colorado, a respected but lesser-known event that draws a few of the biggest names in jazz, welcomed the group as the only high school ensemble invited. The 19 members of the school's top jazz band leave tonight on a bus for the three-day trip.

"We're still going out with a bang," trumpeter John Allen said.

Valley High's top jazz band rose from a struggling seven-piece group in 1994 to become a powerful, award-winning 19-piece ensemble. Much of the group's success is tied to its instructor, the 28-year-old McClendon. McClendon, a UNLV graduate who was a first-year teacher when he came to Valley four years ago, has taught the students to develop a keen interest in jazz as well as a keen ear.

"You hear that death?" he asked several trombone players who hit a sour low note during a rehearsal Tuesday. "If you're sharp on that, it'll kill us."

McClendon said he is as thrilled about the Telluride trip as the students. But the group is still disappointed it never made it to Montreux.

"We spent the whole year working for something that didn't happen," trombone player Jeff Arthurholtz said.

McClendon said his group learned a lot this year about music and about the sometimes harsh world of public-school fund raising.

"They were pretty upset, but they got over it really quickly," McClendon said of his students. "We talked about all the things we did this year. We agreed that it wasn't a wasted year."

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