According to Mike Pote, the director of Jazz Ensemble I, Jazz Ensemble is currently preparing for the Jazz Expressions concert. Jazz Expressions is Jazz Ensemble’s first concert of the year and is on March 22 at CHS at 7 p.m.

Pote said to prepare for the concert, the jazz ensembles have been starting practices with simple exercises before practicing their performance pieces.

“Usually we’ll start with tuning, which makes sense, and then we’ll do some basic exercises that help (the Jazz Ensemble students) get to play together better,” Pote said. “Not with the hard music; it’s just simple exercises to get their ears focused and we start working on something for the day.”

Jazz Ensemble meets every day before school from 7 to 7:40 a.m. CHS has four jazz ensembles, each with around 25 students. Each jazz ensemble differs in experience and difficulty, with Jazz Ensemble I being the most advanced. All participating students earn one academic credit.

Alex Fleig, Jazz Ensemble I trumpet player and senior, said he enjoys Jazz Expressions, but looks forward to Jazz a la Mode the most, a Jazz Ensemble concert at CHS in April.

“Jazz a la Mode is really fun, because we get three performances, so we get like three chances to have our best performance,” Fleig said. “The band room is all decorated and there’s food and everyone just has a really good time.”