CHIMACUM — On a cool November morning, the band room at Chimacum High School is a far cry from the overheated air of Preservation Hall in New Orleans.
But on Friday morning, students were swinging to a Dixieland beat.
“Be sure you’re clapping on the afterbeat,” Mary Lou Montgomery told the young audience, “’cause that’s cool.”
Montgomery is the lead singer of the Dukes of Dabob, a local Dixieland band that plays jazz as it’s been played in New Orleans since the 1920s.
On Friday, the band brought that music, born of the blues, to a new generation of musicians at Chimacum and Port Townsend high schools.
“We perform traditional jazz, New Orleans style, which is still very much alive,” Montgomery told Chimacum band students, “and we’re going to show you why it’s so popular all over the world.”
Sponsored by Jazz in the Olympics, the Dukes will also play for students at Stevens Middle School in Port Angeles and Sequim High School the week of Nov. 14.