Abraham Lincoln High School students proved that the future of jazz music is in good hands while performing at the De Anza college’s, Visual and Performing Arts Center on Friday, Feb 27.
Lincoln’s Jazz Band impressed audiences under the direction of Craig McKenzie, as young students demonstrated their musical skills performing difficult and complex jazz pieces.
Lincoln is a public magnet school for the academic, visual and preforming arts in San Jose. Lincoln provides classes in intermezzo and string orchestra, classical, jazz and pit band, classical and vocal jazz choir, classical, jazz, lyrical and folkloric dance, as well as drama and theater classes.
“The things in life that are easy to measure aren’t necessarily the things we consider the most important,” McKenzie said when discussing the importance of continuing teaching music in public schools.
Lincoln is one of the last remaining public high schools in California that offers an extensive array of classes in the arts. Not only does Lincoln heavily emphasize the arts, it has a strict policy of students maintaining good grades in order to participate in the performing arts.
“What’s easier to measure? Money or love?” McKenzie said. “What’s more important to you-music is one of these things”.
Not many schools teach music, theater, dance or choir in the same way that Lincoln does because of  budget cuts, and because many schools are concentrated on academics.
“Today, most of education is focused so much on testing,” McKenzie said.
Students at Lincoln said they truly appreciate how fortunate they are to attend a school where they’re able to express themselves freely through the performing arts.
“You could be struggling with homework or you’re just really stressed out or tired, you have music there to relieve your stress and go into your own world and you can’t really describe it with words,” said bass guitar player Gabriel Rangel, a junior at Lincoln High School.
“I’ve made so many new friends out of it … I express myself and now I am not shy or afraid to say who I am,” he said.
“Anybody can be somebody,” said electric guitar player Gabriel Bautista.
With a multitude of art classes, Lincoln provides a safe environment for students to express themselves freely through the arts through dance, choir, theater or through a saxophone.
The future of music is in good hands as long as schools like Lincoln continue to teach young students.