It’s the busiest time of year for musicians at Mid-Prairie High School, said band director David Kunz. Students are preparing for solo/ensemble contests, large group contests, the Iowa Jazz Championships, senior recitals and performances over the summer in parades and community gatherings. But junior Dillon Poole has one more thing to prepare for: the Iowa All-State Jazz Band concert.

Poole was selected to play alto saxophone in the Class 1A/2A Iowa All-State Jazz Band and is one member of 21 musicians from across the state who will perform at the All-State Jazz Band concert in Des Moines on May 12.

“The audition is you record yourself playing a piece of jazz,” Kunz said. “It’s a swing tune that’s about 50 measures long and you have to play it along with a recorded rhythm section, make a recording of that and email it in to the Jazz Educators of Iowa and their group of judges… listens to all those recordings from all over the state and pick a band in Class 1A/2A, Class 3A and Class 4A for the All-State Jazz Bands.”

Poole said he was surprised and excited to hear he’d been selected for the All-State band — that he wasn’t expecting it but was thrilled to get the news.

Poole will receive the music for the May 12 concert at the Iowa Jazz Championships on April 5.

“At the big award ceremony at the end of the day, where there’s about a thousand high school musicians, they’ll introduce all of the All-State Jazz musicians and they’ll all come out on stage, where they give them their music. It’s really cool because they’re really recognized in front of their peers.”

The All-State Jazz Band concert is always a treat, Kunz said, because the musicians get the opportunity to perform in front of band directors from all over the state, plus their parents and peers. The concert’s directors are usually professional jazz musicians themselves.

In addition to the jazz band, Poole also plays in the concert band, marching band and pep band. But he likes jazz band the most.

“I really like the improvising,” he said. “I like being able to play my own stuff, not just strictly what’s written on the paper.”

And that talent for improvisation is one of the reasons Poole was selected for the All-State band.

“You don’t have to improvise on your audition, but they encourage it. As far as I’m concerned, nobody should get in the All-State Jazz Band who doesn’t improvise, at least some, because that’s jazz, you know?”

Every student in the Mid-Prairie jazz band is dedicated — you have to be when the group rehearses at 7 a.m. before the start of the official school day. And on top of rehersals at Mid-Prairie, Kunz said Poole brings his horn home every weekend.

“He practices a lot,” Kunz said. “It takes a tremendous amount of work to prepare that piece of music [for the audition] at that level. His hard work is paying off for him.”

Kunz said learning the play and improvise in front of an audience is an amazing life skill that he is working hard to teach the young musicians under his tutelage.

“I was talking about myself yesterday to one of my students, about when I was in high school… I wasn’t used to talking in front of an audience and I was very shy. But I was in choir, and I was in band and in those two things, I had to perform in front of an audience,” Kunz said. “That changed my life. When I had some success in that, I started to be able to be in front of people. Life as a musician is not so much about talking to people, but you learn how to perform, how to calm your nerves so that you can speak through your instrument.”