Everything nice.: Southernaires reunion.

I had the pleasure of being apart of the advanced jazz group at my high school, Southernaires, for my junior and senior years. I had been in Symphonic since my sophomore year, which was full of great musicians, but Southernaires was a different way to be a musician and to challenge oneself because it is a 12-voiced, single-mic'd jazz group that uses a rhythm section. I love classical music, but jazz is another love of mine, and Southernaires allowed a lot more collaboration between student and director, as well as student to student, especially with a rhythm section involved. Because this group was so small, and because we went to a number of festivals throughout the year, this group became some of my best friends throughout high school, and even though I am not as close with some of them as I was, I still love them all dearly and feel they have impacted me in a great way.

That being said, I have been able to keep in tough and stay close to most of them, which has been awesome over the years. We always talked about a little reunion, and during my visit, we actually sort of got one together!

Last Tuesday, we got a handful of us together and met at the Ram, a local restaurant and brewery, and had a few drinks and a lot of laughs. We continued the little party by going to a Salem bar to do some karaoke, where we laughed even more. We couldn't have everyone there, but we had a great time regardless. And we may have drunk-dialed our high school director and sang one of our Christmas songs to her in the phone.... just maybe ;)