Not every high school music group has superfans.
Then again, not every high school has a music group like Night School.
Night School is a funk-soul combo and the newest ensemble of North Scott High School music students.
In addition to playing during halftime of several football and basketball games this year, the band performed gigs at the Redstone Room and The Tangled Wood, made an appearance at the Iowa Association of School Boards’ annual convention in November and hosted a clinic at the Iowa Bandmasters Association convention in Des Moines last week.
But the group’s most recent public performance was during the annual Jazz Showcase concert in the North Scott Fine Arts Auditorium on May 13. As they began playing the Stevie Wonder classic “Sir Duke,” audience members, including a group of their classmates, flocked to the front of the auditorium and danced in the aisles.
And at the back of the auditorium, band director Mike McMann bopped his head and grooved right along with them.
“It’s been a really fun year,” he said of Night School’s performances. “The cool thing about this group is that it gives students a chance to play and sing other music. And play in a group that’s not typical of high school, more of like, in the professional playing world. There’s vocalists and there’s horns and a rhythm section, so they all kind of work together.
“So, it’s great, because we have people from band, choir and orchestra, all in one group. It’s kind of a nice way to bring everybody together and let people from different groups hang out and play.”
McMann added that Night School also gives students the opportunity to perform more, and in venues they might not typically play with other high school ensembles.
“I always want to make sure that with the performance opportunities and the concerts, that the students have fun doing it, but they also see what kind of effect they have on the crowds. Just because when I play and run my own professional music group that does music like this, at the gigs, I love when we play and people just have fun. And they dance and they’re singing along with what we’re playing and you know that they left the performance feeling better than when they came in. I want the students to see that, because really that’s what performing is about in the first place. It’s about making people forget about whatever they’re dealing with in their current lives and just have fun.”
While McMann’s experience with his own professional band, 10 of Soul, was one inspiration for Night School, another impetus for starting the group came out of what he described as the “nightmare COVID year.”
As students returned to in-person learning during the 2020-2021 school year, band students were limited in their practice time. “Everything was just awful,” McMann said. “It was socially distanced and we had bell covers and we had to have everybody spaced out in a grid in the band and spray down the music stands after a rehearsal.
“We spent some time in rehearsals watching videos, because we were only allowed to play for, I think, the last 20 minutes of rehearsals because of the release of germs into the air. There’s this group called Tower of Power that is a horn band, and they’re pretty well-known in the music community. And we were watching that video, and I was just like, we need to do something like this. With COVID being what it was, numbers were just being knocked down everywhere. I thought, we need to try this when we come back. I want there to be something they can cling to. So, the very next year after that, we started Night School.”
McMann said students bought into the idea of the group immediately, and added he also had a good group of performers for the first lineup.
“We had some really great leaders in there. Our vocalists were Peter LaCorte, Cora O’Neill, Chloe Schwab and Katilyn Wood. They were just some really dynamic performers that were used to the stage. They were all Lancer Productions kids; they were in choirs. So, vocals were set and we had some good instrumentalists, too. It was really a good year to get it started with. The fact that they bought in and sold it meant that we could continue, because it then became a group people wanted to be a part of.”
As the musicians gave their first performances, early audiences bought in, too, especially students.
“You could tell they were like, ‘That’s really cool,’ because they hadn’t seen something like that before,” said McMann. “(At games) they’re used to a specific kind of thing. But then, when you try something different and that different is quality and you’ve got good students who are selling it, that’s another cool thing.”
Growing the band
When it comes to choosing the music, McMann said that’s a two-way street.
“I’ll always ask for student input. And they help me keep up with maybe some stuff that’s more current and things that they think might be relevant to what kind of music we’re doing.”
He said performing the music as it was originally written also gives students the opportunity to take a deeper dive into the songs.
“It’s nice because you could maybe do a Stevie Wonder or a Bruno Mars tune for something like that for jazz or concert band. But it’s always going to be an arrangement of it, because it’s different instrumentation. If you’re going to play it in marching band, it’s going to be for all the instruments in band and drumline and stuff. But in a group like this, you can actually recreate the original, and then it allows the instrumentalists and the vocalists to dig in and really get into that style in a true sense.”
In addition to Stevie Wonder, Night School’s potential set list at the Jazz Showcase also included Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Fred Wesley and the British acid jazz-funk group Brand New Heavies. The band also welcomed guest musician Wycliffe Gordon to the stage to perform one of his songs, “What You Dealin’ With.”
Having Night School play at events like the Iowa Association of School Boards’ convention is something McMann sees as a point of pride.
“When we played at the school board convention and the school board members from North Scott were right down front and center at their own table and just kind of watching up and smiling at the students, and the response that we got. And when we hear from school board members that they were hearing from people all throughout the day how much they loved the group, that was a great thing. Because it just confirms what great kids we have here and a great supportive community.”
The Iowa Bandmasters Association appearance was also another way to not only give students a performance opportunity, but it also gave McMann the chance to teach other band directors about how to start a group like Night School in their own district.
“It’s kind of neat to see that people are excited about the possibility, and hopefully that’ll take off in other districts, too,” he said. “Because it gives students the chance to do something different, maybe students who wouldn’t necessarily be in jazz band or concert band.
“Jacob Link on piano, case in point,” McMann said of Night School’s current keyboardist. “He was like, ‘How do I get into Night School?’ I was like, ‘Join jazz band.’ Now he loves jazz band in high school. It’s just good for the program, good for the students.”
As Night School prepares to wrap up its current performance schedule on Saturday, opening for 10 of Soul at The Tangled Wood, McMann said he sees the combo as a way to build the music programs at North Scott.
“The one thing I think is definitely true is that it’s just another way for students to bond. It’s kind of like every LP production has a different cast. So, you’re going to meet people for one production and then meet different people, but there’s still going to be mutual friends and then it just makes the family bigger.
“So, this brings in more students. Like, it brought in Natalie Sierk and Addalie Reese as vocalists, and then they’re joining the band people. So, now you start seeing all those people coming and hanging out in the band area together. It’s just really broadened the family.”
Night School will perform Saturday, May 24, from 6-10 p.m. at The Tangled Wood, 3636 Tanglewood Road, Bettendorf. For more information, including a performance schedule, visit tinyurl.com/nsnightschool.