Garfield High Jazz Band Challenges Wynton Marsalis--At Hoops

While Seattle's Garfield High School Jazz Band did score a stirring victory in the national Essentially Ellington jazz competition earlier this month they were not so lucky on the basketball court.

But they do have a pretty cool story to impress next fall's dormmates with: They played basketball against Wynton Marsalis. Senior pianist Ben Hamaji (who won an outstanding soloist award at the competition) issued the challenge, which turned into a late-night hoopfest with a jazz legend.

Writes Sam Koelle in the Garfield Messenger:

At 11:30 p.m. on the last night of the festival, Wynton was nowhere to be seen. Personally, I had given up and gone back to the hotel before receiving a fortuitous text...at 12:15 in the morning, “It’s on.”

The court was a converted recording studio on the fifth floor of the Time Warner Building, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. ... Marsalis carried his teams to victory, no matter who he was paired with. All different combinations were attempted. The team of Marsalis and Phil McCarthy even dispatched three jazz band girls, despite Alex Evenson’s stunning shooting performance.Commendations all around: To the Garfield students for issuing the challenge, and to Marsalis for indulging their request. This will go down as the greatest Garfield student brush with celebrity since two members of the Class of '74 drag-raced Tony Orlando.