THERE was a note of informality on Wednesday morning when the 15-musician line-up from Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra rehearsed at Snow Concert Hall before setting out on their Australian tour from the ACT.

The jazz ensemble, directed by Wynton Marsalis, will perform two sold-out concerts in Canberra on August 17 and 18, but lucky music students from Canberra Grammar School, where the concert hall is located, Radford and Marist were treated to a rehearsal that involved news jazz work and a very old number by Jelly Roll Morton.

After an introduction by Snow Concert Hall international series artistic director Ana de la Vega, the orchestra’s lead trombonist and educator, Vincent Gardner, spoke to the students about what they could expect in a jazz rehearsal, stressing the give-and-take, the suggestions and the tips from all orchestra members, even when they weren’t the composer.

And it wasn’t a star system either, he explained. Marsalis is famous, but in his band, he plays fourth trumpet, alongside the others.

Gardner said that the band did around 180 concerts a year in different venues they had to test the changing acoustics, but that the one constant was taking the beat from the rhythm section. Once inside the rehearsal, they saw what he meant.