DENTON - A student jazz ensemble from North Texas is going to The Grammys this weekend, not as spectators, but as nominees.
The University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band is currently hitting all the right notes, as they travel to Los Angeles for the awards, which are in their 52nd year.
"Lab 2009," their latest recording, has been nominated for two Grammys - for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album and Best Instrumental Composition, by band director, Steve Wiest. The all-student band has been Grammy-nominated four times.
"If you were to walk in to a musical setting of any kind, any instrumentation in the jazz world, and they said 'I haven't met you before, where are you from?' And you say 'I'm so and so and I played in the One O'Clock Lab Band,' they go 'sit down.' They don't even have to hear you play," said Wiest.
Steve Wiest and the One O'Clock Lab Band will attend Sunday's broadcast, along with performing in Los Angeles-area high schools and jazz venues. This could be the year the rest of the country figures out what the jazz world has known all along: these students can play with the best.
"When that double nomination happened, I thought of it as a vindication or acclimation of what we do here at North Texas. It's a nomination that puts them on the same playing field as all these great artists that they study," Wiest said.
This is their first year to receive multiple nominations, and they have yet to win.
E-mail gcogill@wfaa.com
