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Jazz Ambassadors: The best gig in the Army
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 Chief Warrant Officer Gordon Kippola, director of the Jazz Ambassadors, signs autographs on programs for Preston Waggoner, middle, and Joshua Schmidt, right. (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr) There are clearly no prima donnas in America’s Big Band. Still, says Lewis, who’s been with the Jazz Ambassadors for nine years, this group represents the greatest gig a soldier could wish for. “I’d be foolish to leave,” said the veteran of the Gulf War, Desert Storm and Desert Shield. “It’s a blessing to do what you love.” It was a crowd of about 700 people who felt blessed Sunday evening during the Jazz Ambassadors’ 25th stop on a 31-city tour. The 85-minute concert included an “Armed Forces Salute,” the playing of the nation’s five armed service themes; and a thrilling “Let Freedom Ring” finale sung by Lewis and energetically played by the 19-member band under the direction of Chief Warrant Officer Gordon Kippola. Added bonuses: a poem Kippola penned about tourism highlights he enjoyed in Baker City (note to Baker City Police: the conductor seemed curiously taken with the possibility of pocketing the Armstrong Nugget) and the Jazz Ambassadors’ rendition of “Samba These Days,” a difficult jazz piece Baker High School and Middle School band director Jeff Sizer wrote in 1981 while a student at Central Washington University. Kippola said the band looked at the piece once before the tour began and practiced it Saturday before Sunday’s flawless performance. “It felt really good to hear them do it,” said Sizer, who enjoyed an ovation from the crowd. Three of his students — Kate Hindman on alto sax, Trevor Davis on trumpet and Jarrod Maxwell on trombone — were invited to join the band for its encore, the signature Big Band number “In the Mood.”
 (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr) The Jazz Ambassadors musicians, who are selected from many hundreds of applicants, are as diverse as the Army itself. Bass trombonist Major Bailey, a sergeant first class, used to be a child actor, with credits on the “New Mickey Mouse Club” (“I was known as Ryan, my middle name,” he says), the Nickelodeon shows “Double Dare” and “Kids, Inc.” and bit parts in a short-lived 1994 Hulk Hogan series called “Thunder in Paradise,” where he played “everything from a desk clerk to a cabana boy.” In seventh grade he picked up the trombone, and he got good enough to earn a scholarship in Jazz Studies at the University of North Florida. Today he’s celebrating his 30th birthday; his colleagues and the audience serenaded him with “Happy Birthday” during Sunday’s concert. The Jazz Ambassadors, explained trumpet and flugelhorn player Sgt. 1st Class Paul Armstrong, perform four different shows in their repertoire. While each song is spelled out on sheet music, band members get numerous chances each performance to improvise, an approach that keeps each show fresh for the players. That’s even true for the band’s most senior member, Sgt. Maj. Gene Thorne of Vero Beach, Fla., who’s in his 33rd and final year playing baritone sax with the Jazz Ambassadors. Thorne joined the band straight out of Catholic University in Washington, D.C. “For me over the years, people have come and gone, and they always seem to replace them with someone as good or better,” Thorne said from backstage just minutes before the concert. “The band just keeps getting better.” Thorne said he plans to continue composing and arranging once he receives his military discharge March 1. He arranged three numbers on the Jazz Ambassadors’ program Sunday. Thorne said he’s enjoyed the fact that his replacement, Spc. Paul White, has completed basic training and has joined the band for the last few stops on its current tour. While the Jazz Ambassadors’ mission is “to carry into the grassroots of our country the story of our magnificent Army,” the group also plays some seriously major gigs from time to time. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, they will play two performances under the baton of Maestro Marvin Hamlisch with the National Symphony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Lewis, the singer, is from Dennison, Texas, where she started singing in her church choir. For her the most important message the Jazz Ambassadors spread is the importance of having all Americans, regardless of their political or religious beliefs, hold in their prayers the members of the military serving in harm’s way. “They say that music soothes the savage beast,” she said. “We figure we can lure people in with our music to remind people what’s really important.”
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