Community Reaction
During the 1973 Jazz Lab Band tour across western Nebraska, the band not only performed in each of the communities, they also hosted clinics, joint rehearsals, and side-by-side demonstrations with the local jazz bands to help them improve their performances (Tour Schedule). The performance sets of the UNL Jazz Lab Band were not planned or set in stone; the band had a repertoire that the performance sets were chosen from. The set performed at any given location could have been a combination of any or all of the repertoire songs, in any order (Program).
The communities that the Jazz Lab Band visited were very impressed with the band, their performances, and involvement with the local bands. Many of the community leaders who helped set up and organize the tour wrote back to Special Assistant for the Arts Vaughn Jaenike to praise the Jazz Lab Band and thank them for going to the community. Bank of Verdigre President C.J. Marshall and Community Concert Series chair Karen Young from Verdigre, Nebraska wrote to Jaenike not only praising the band but eager to discuss the return of the band to the community (Marshall). James Grimes, Director of Music for Ogallala Public Schools, also highly praised the Jazz Lab Band and their time in his community (Grimes). Grimes even took the band on a special outing to Lake McConaughy during their time in Ogallala. After the successful and well-organized tour, band director Dennis Schneider wrote a letter Vaughn Jaenike’s secretary Virginia Luke thanking her for all of her work to organize most of the tour and informed her that the band had decided to make her an honorary member of the Jazz Lab Band for all her effort (Schneider).