By Beth Carroll
What do you get when you take a handful of freshmen, a sprinkling of sophomores, a few juniors, and a bunch of seniors and mix them all together with some saxophones, trumpets, drums, clarinets, trombones, a piano, a flute, and one vocalist?
If you’re lucky, you get the Morristown High School Spectrum Jazz Ensemble. And if you’re really, really lucky, you’ll get to hear them perform at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown on March 1, 2023.
The band — comprised of 22 instrumentalists and a not-so-secret weapon, singer Julia Cama, who won in 2019 with the trio Orion’s Belt — made it through the audition process to become one of 13 acts in this edition of Morristown Onstage, an annual talent competition to benefit the Morris Educational Foundation.
Band members are:
Freshmen: Robert McLaughlin on trombone; Henry Yip on baritone sax; and trumpeters Garrett Gregor, Santiago Rios Guarin, and Audrey Miller. Audrey is Spectrum’s lone female instrumentalist.
Sophomores: Louis DeLeon on trombone; Caden Janosy on sax, clarinet, and flute; Aidan Orbeta on alto sax, soprano sax, and clarinet; Eric Ottiano and Jason Marella on alto sax; and Eli Diringer on tenor sax.
Juniors: Pedro Guillen on trombone, Matthew Bozza on trumpet, drummers Roman Santaniello and Samuel Tracey, and vocalist Julia Cama. More on her in a moment.
Seniors: Henry Mruz on trombone, Zach Diringer on clarinet, Jafet Alvarado on tenor sax and clarinet, bassists Philip Byrne and Nicholas Schachter, pianist Anthony Samms, and drummer Shaan Thakker.
‘THEY CAN DO ANYTHING’
“These kids can do anything an adult can do,” says their director, Tim Beadle. “They just don’t know it.”
Beadle grew up in a military family and graduated from the University of Maryland. He married a Jersey girl and fellow music teacher, Carol, and they settled in Morris County where they’re raising their children, Luke and Grace.
After nine years at Mendham High, he took the job of band teacher at Frelinghuysen Middle School in 2019. In addition to directing the 7th- and 8th grade bands there, Beadle heads over to the high school every Tuesday night to direct the kids of Spectrum.
A challenge for all teachers, remote learning during the pandemic was particularly difficult for music teachers and band directors.
“Music during COVID wasn’t music,” Mr. Beadle admits. “Students play instruments because they love playing with other people and we couldn’t do that during COVID.”
The pandemic kept the band from playing together for a whole year, and even when students were permitted to meet, they were limited in the time they were allowed to spend in the band room.
“We had to go outside every half hour,” recalls senior Anthony Samms, the unofficial but generally acknowledged spokesman for the group.
The kids took it in stride. All of them participate in at least one other band at the high school. Some of them are Marching Colonials. Some are in the orchestra or pit band. And they all play multiple instruments. Spectrum is an elite band and membership is by audition only.
On any given day the band is missing some of its members due to other academic or extracurricular commitments. Because of the universal but slightly perplexing overlap between musicians and fencers, Spectrum’s numbers are depleted when there’s a big fencing meet. The resilient group always rises to the challenge.
“We practice two-and-a-half hours every Tuesday. We often have a student or two absent which is OK as long as they are prepared for the next rehearsal,” Beadle says. “We encourage our kids to be involved at the high school.”
This year, Spectrum will perform at the Bridgewater Raritan Jazz Festival, the NJAJE State Jazz Prelims, the Essentially Elliington Regional Festival, and the West Milford Jazz Festival. Spectrum often competes against other school bands. Last year, the ensemble made the state finals, and it always has done well. Morristown Onstage is different.
“Our audience is almost always mostly family,” says Beadle. “Morristown Onstage has a diverse audience and it’s a terrific venue. It’ll be good for them to perform in front of that many people.”
A CROWD FAVORITE
Do they get nervous?
“Never!” say the instrumentalists.
“Yes!” says their vocalist, Julia Cama, a junior who will be singing Feeling Good, popularized by Nina Simone, when the band performs on March 1.
Despite her nerves, Julia is no novice at MPAC. When they were in 7th grade, she and her twin sister Charlotte teamed with their friend Anna Grace to form a vocal group called Orion’s Belt, which won the audience choice award in 2019 with a stirring rendition of Audra Day’s Rise Up.
When she’s not singing, Julia is in the color guard at MHS, is co-head of the costume department for high school plays, and is an EMT with the Morris Minute Men.
She’s also a staple onstage at the high school. Last fall, she and Charlotte played the evil twins in She Kills Monsters, and this spring they will appear together in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Charlotte is in the title role, while Julia will play the Fairy Godmother.
You can see them singing with the cast of Cinderella at the halfway point of Morristown Onstage.
Despite their huge commitment to jazz, most Spectrum members say they aren’t planning music careers. Julia and Anthony Samms are among the exceptions.
But all that’s all in the future. Right now, these talented young musicians are planning to show what they can do at Morristown Onstage.
If they win, they will be following some big footsteps. Timeless Jazz, a collection of Frelinghuysen Middle School musicians, won the very first Morristown Onstage, in 2008.
The 16th edition of Morristown Onstage, a fundraiser for the Morris Educational Foundation, is scheduled for Wednesday, March 1, 2023, at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $35-$85, at MPAC’s box office, at 100 South St., Morristown, 973-539-8008.
