The Bishop Center for Performing Arts hosted the 8th Annual Grays Harbor College Jazz Festival Thursday.

The all-day event featured performances from eight local junior high and high school jazz bands as well as the Grays Harbor College Jazz Band. Festival special guests Duende Libre, a celebrated Seattle jazz trio with multiple album recordings, both performed and acted as clinicians for the school jazz bands after their performances.

Spotify says “Duende utilizes the American jazz tradition as a point of departure for daring explorations of folk and classical music from the Americas, Europe and Africa, yielding catchy melodies, lush harmonies, and wholehearted groove.”

The trio of Alex Chadsey, Jeff Busch and Farko Dosumov offered enthusiastic guidance to the school bands on tempo and techniques to accentuate the mood of their music and to get “more feeling” out of their songs. Advice given from the trio was earnestly taken.

Duende performed and also put on a session with audience participation in learning different syncopations like samba and mambo by clapping the rhythms and moving with the beats. For jazz, Duende calls it “giving a different feels.”

The Grays Harbor College Jazz Band received a thunderous ovation for their “Five Nights at Freddies” rendition made popular by the horror video and game series almost universally known by the younger population seated in the theater and around the globe. Grays Harbor College’s Brayden Osina gave a strong vocal performance with masterful instrumentals backing him.

Wrapping up the morning session of the festival, Grays Harbor College Music Director Bill Dyer reminded all prospective students in the audience that “you don’t have to be a ‘music major’ to play in the GHC Jazz Band.”