If it's Tuesday, they must be playing the Terrace du Petit Palais. With time for only one rehearsal -- in a sports stadium in Grindelwald, Switzerland -- the 17-piece Stanford Jazz Orchestra swept through two of Europe's classiest summertime venues on their first overseas tour in July. At the Montreux Jazz Festival, the trumpets, 'bones, sax, piano, drums and bass belted out Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" and guest drummer Louie Bellson's crowd-pleaser "Who Brings You the Good News?" to the lakeside crowd at an outdoor amphitheater, one of 13 stages scattered throughout the city. Three days later, they were whumpin' in the wings, ready to bring down the house at Rotterdam's North Sea Jazz Festival with a prime-time 11 p.m. rendition of Shorter's "Go." Then it was on to a performance at the Luxembourg Gardens Bandstand in Paris, followed by dinner at Le Procope, the tony eatery that dates from 1686 ("Please dress nicely!" the itinerary urged).
"They're at Stanford for other things, so most of them do this for fun," veteran conductor Fred Berry says about the student musicians -- most of them undergraduates -- who practice for hours each day and rehearse twice a week with him during the academic year. "They probably won't continue to play an instrument after graduation, so this may be the most powerful musical experience they'll ever have."
The Jazz Orchestra was not the only student group to hit the road this summer. The 40-strong Stanford Wind Ensemble wowed 'em in June, playing to the hometown crowds of lecturer Giancarlo Aquilanti in Jesi, Italy. What's Italian for veni, vidi, vici?
