All That Jazz: Local Students to Play Holiday Street Gig for Cancer Society

A group of eight award-winning local high school student musicians will be standing outside Hector’s restaurant in Kirkland on likely cold upcoming December evenings to spread holiday jazz cheer -- and to make a difference.

Seven members of the octet are students at Inglemoor High School, while the trombone player is from Juanita High. They range in ages from 15 to 18 and are doing the “Christmas Music for the Cure” gig because they love to play, and to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

“Last year a group of us got together because we wanted to raise money for Relay for Life, which is for the same cause,” said Daniel Briggs, one of the players. “This year’s event is just continuing that, but we’re more organized.”

The Relay for Life benefits the American Cancer Society as well and this year is at Juanita High in May -- read more about that here. The eight guys are all from the Kenmore-Finn Hill area and have been practicing 30 holiday jazz tunes for four months.

“A lot of us plan on going into music programs in college, or just continuing to play in the future,” Briggs said.

They’ll have a donation box set up outside Hector’s, where they will play Dec. 19-21 from 4:30-8:30 p.m., Dec. 22 from 3:30-8:30 p.m. and Dec. 23 from 12:30-4:30 p.m. Other students will be setting up donation boxes along a two-block area nearby.

“It’s great to be able to be performing music, and know that it is benefiting such a great cause at the same time” said piano player Jeffery Ni, a junior.

Their goal is to raise $3,500 for the cancer society. They say it’s been a great skills-building project, and it’s important to be supporting an important cause.

“It’s good to know that by playing jazz music, I’m supporting a cause larger than myself,” said saxophone player Logan Heine, also a junior.

Hector’s is downtown at 112 Lake Street South. To learn more about Christmas Music for the Cure, please email christmasmusicforthecure@gmail.com.

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Some of the information for this post came from a press release by Christmas Music for the Cure.