INDIANA--Have bass, keyboard and drums--will travel.
That's the refrain for Indiana Area High School juniors Philip Kuehn, Angelo Versace and Joe Saylor, who have been performing as a jazz trio in the Indiana and Pittsburgh areas for about three years.
Calling themselves "paj three" (pronounced page three), a play on their first initials, the three young musicians have taken a note from such classic 1950s and '60s bop artists as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, while adding their own fresh instrumental ideas.
Members of the trio practice their favorite brand of music nearly every day. When not jamming in the high school band room, they pick up the beat during home-based sessions.
"We play at home for hours and hours, as much as we can," said Joe Saylor. But, "Something that gets in the way is school."
A few times a month, they get to share their love of jazz with an area audience.
Planned around family vacations, summer gigs have taken them as far away as Ontario, Canada.
Favorite local venues have included the James Street Tavern on Pittsburgh's North Side, a top spot in the region for live jazz, and Blairsville's Pie Cucina restaurant.
At the James Street Tavern, paj three has sat in with other bands and participated in regular Tuesday night jam sessions.
Kuehn and Saylor inherited their love of jazz from their fathers: John Kuehn is a music professor at IUP, while Nevin Saylor is the band director at Indiana Area Senior High.
Since Saylor, a native of Burrell Township, and his wife, Paula, both are musical--Paula is a flutist and choir director at Purchase Line High School--they are tolerant of their son's drum attacks. But, Nevin noted, "It does get loud."
About six years ago, Philip Kuehn, on bass, and Joe Saylor, on drums, teamed up with their respective fathers--John, on piano, and Nevin, on trumpet--to form a local jazz quartet, Standard Time.
The most recent addition was Versace, who had known his classmates and bandmates from childhood--as members of Indiana's House of Yahweh church, where all three teens perform in the "Worship Team" church band.
Versace noted his parents "played a lot of music for me" as he grew up. But he focused on jazz after he saw Philip and Joe perform at a local gig and realized they were getting paid for doing what they love--making music.
All three teens are multi-talented musicians. All are able to play the piano.
Joe joins Philip on bass in the school orchestra. In the marching band, Versace carries a trombone, Philip a tuba.
In addition, Joe has experience playing the trumpet, while Philip also is an accomplished reed man on clarinet and sax.
When Versace began tickling the ivories with Standard Time, John Kuehn switched to saxophone and clarinet.
That five-piece lineup still makes appearances, but the elder Saylor noted the offshoot trio, paj three, now is in greater demand.
When a booking comes up, he explained, "I ask whether they want five people or three people. Most of the time, they just want three," motivated by the lower fee for fewer musicians.
Still, the elder jazzmen often tag along, especially to clubs where alcohol is served and the trio will be performing late.
Joe Saylor noted, "Jazz happens from 7 or 8 in the evening to the early morning, so we'll have an adult or an older friend with us."
While able to appreciate several other forms of popular music aside from jazz--including hip-hop, '70s funk and reggae--unlike most other teens their age, the trio members agree that much rock music (perhaps with the exception of The Beatles) is too predictable and fails to move them.
Yet, Philip noted, "It's good to listen to all types of music."
Like many of today's jazz practitioners, paj three offers an instrumental repertoire that is a mixture of homage to more seasoned masters, inspired improvisation and original compositions.
"We try to transcribe melodies of the more modern stuff," Versace explained. "We get some jazz CDs and listen to a solo and copy it note for note."
But, it's the unplanned musical moments that make jazz such a rewarding genre for the trio.
Versace said, "You get this feeling when somebody plays something you don't expect."
Paj three has experienced several such serendipitous moments in its performances.
Said Joe, "We may all be thinking of something we heard--a rhythm or a chord--and we'll all play it at the same time."
Compared to their performances with larger musical groups at school, Joe said, the trio format offers "so much more freedom and spontaneity."
Paj three has learned to vary its set list to match its audience's expectations.
At performances where the crowd has specifically come to hear jazz, the band can include "faster, louder" tunes," Phil said.
Still, Joe pointed out, during a four-hour stretch at the James Street Tavern, the trio mixes up tempos and styles, both for pacing and variety: "We try not to play too many of the same type of things."
"Sometimes audiences are tough," Joe admits. But, "The atmosphere at James Street is good. It's nice to have a reaction and feed off the audience."
When the crowd responds well, Versace said, "They clap after every solo," often with added verbal approbation: "Yah!" or "Wooo!"
While Versace and Philip each take turns soloing during most numbers, Joe rations his drum solos more carefully so audiences won't begin to take for granted his rhythmic showcases.
Versace pointed out the trio members improvise to some extent during every one of their numbers.
A typical approach is to play a number's melody twice and then launch into extended improvisation.
But, Versace said, "Our playing itself is an improvisation. Not every note we're playing is on a sheet of music."
"We kind of let it flow," Philip observed.
When performing while people are dining, "We're more toned down and relaxed," Philip said.
Although they are among the highest-paying, the least musically rewarding gigs are wedding receptions, where the crowd is "not paying as much attention" to the entertainers, he noted.
Faddis, who also performed with paj three at the James Street Tavern, was helpful to all three members.
He pointed out several key jazz CDs for Philip to transcribe. For Joe, Faddis was able to "bring out the humor" in the group's performances. "It's nice. Sometimes we take things a little too seriously."
Among other artists' songs the trio performs, Versace indicated Ray Noble's Cherokee always gets a warm reception from Indiana area audiences. He explained, "It's Indiana's fight song as well as a jazz standard."
He noted the trio always ends its set with "The Theme," a melody Miles Davis wrote based on the chord changes from George Gershwin's I Got Rhythm."
Joe explained, "It has a sign-off sound that says, 'Thanks for coming.' "
In addition, the trio plays some original compositions.
Philip wrote Good To Go, an amalgam of funk and samba stylings, for the group. On such numbers, he may switch from upright acoustic bass to electric bass.
Philip's composition was inspired by The Chicken, a tune by renowned jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius.
"I based the melody on his chord changes," Philip explained.
Among Joe's musical crea-tions is 73, also based on the chord changes of an earlier tune--Dearly Beloved, a classic from the 1940s.
"I like classic jazz," he said, explaining the title refers to the model of Fender Rhodes keyboard he used to write the tune.
"It gave it a little more mellow sound," he noted.
Versace's tune, Chillin' In The Sun, features his own series of chord changes.
It was the title of the number inspired by another artist--trumpet player and Gillespie protege Jon Faddis, who was working with the high school's jazz ensemble as an artist in residence.
Versace recalled, "I couldn't think of a name. John Faddis said, 'What does it remind you ofâ¢
"I said it reminded me of the beach, so he said, 'Why don't you call it, Chillin' in the Sun?' "
In addition to their musical endeavors at school, all of the paj three members have benefited from private instruction with Pittsburgh musicians and repeated listening to the recordings of established jazz artists.
Joe, who lists drummers Art Blakey and Elvin Jones among his primary influences, receiv-ed first-hand instruction from Roger Humphries, a Pittsburgh big band leader and drummer.
In addition to Pastorius, bassists Ron Carter and Paul Chambers provide essential listening for Philip.
He received his formal instruction from Dwayne Dolphin, Jeff Grubbs and Jeff Mangone.
Versace counts Herbie Hancock and Dave Kikoski among his favorite jazz pianists. He learned his keyboard skills from instructors Ron Bickel and Craig Davis.
All three look to jazz Hall of Fame Miles Davis for inspiration.
Said Joe, "His Kind of Blue is our favorite CD. It always makes us feel good."
Each member brings his own strengths to paj three.
Joe noted he has a knack for the business end of things: "I get a lot of the gigs."
Philip handles a lot of the writing chores, while Versace "has to learn the melody and play it well."
Joe noted the trio has recorded a demo CD, which it uses to audition for gigs.
He said the group wants to perfect a few more original numbers before it pursues one of its goals: recording a professional CD.
All three members indicated their post-graduation plans include relocating to New York City, which remains one of the meccas for players who want to break into the jazz scene professionally.
But, Joe admitted, "It's really tough. You have to know people."
Fortunately, Paj Three already has made some important contacts in the business., including trombone stylist Curtis Fuller, who has performed with the likes of Count Basie, John Coltrane and Lionel Hampton.
Even more importantly, the group has caught the attention of jazz pianist and patriarch, Ellis Marsalis.
A top performer and composer in his own right, Marsalis has served as mentor for new generations of jazz players, including his sons Branford and Wynton as well as Harry Connick Jr.
When the elder Marsalis came to the area in November 2000, for performances at IUP and some local high schools, he was short a drummer and bassist--and Joe and Philip were recruited.
Based on those gigs and a subsequent demo CD, Marsalis invited Paj Three to perform April 26 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
It's the biggest gig yet for the group--both in terms of the audience, which is expected to number in the thousands, and in the potential significance for its members' careers.
"It's a huge deal," said Nevin Saylor of the festival appearance. "They'll be exposed to a lot of big names."
But the local trio will be far from idle until then.
This Saturday, the trio will head to the LaMont restaurant in Pittsburgh, to perform at a private party for the trustees of Carnegie Mellon University.
On Feb. 11, the group will provide a jazz setting for the annual Indiana County United Way banquet, at the Indiana Country Club.
In a March appearance at Pittsburgh's James Street Tavern, Paj Three for the first time will be billed there as the headliner.
Also that month, Joe will head to Providence, R.I., to drum with the Music Educators National Conference All-Eastern Jazz Ensemble.
All three trio members have participated in past editions of the Mellon Jazz Festival in Pittsburgh and the Skidmore Summer Jazz Institute in New York.
