After making a test-run at a February jazz festival, the NIU Jazz Lab Band will perform at the Music Building’s Boutell Memorial Concert Hall March 30 at 8 p.m.

The concert is the Jazz Lab Band’s first since winning seven awards at the Elmhurst College Jazz Festival Feb. 7.

Director Antonio Garcia said the festival resulted in “major constructive shifts in the way the band is approaching its music.

“All of us felt good about our performance,” Garcia said. “I feel we played as tight as any of our previous appearances, and the (festival) judges seemed to think so, too.”

The jazz band performed with 20 to 25 bands and was one of two bands that represented “second-level” talent from the colleges represented at the festival.

“Most bands were the number one bands from each school,” Garcia said. “Hearing them gave us really strong indications of what different (music) programs are like.”

Garcia said after hearing the lab band’s performance, NIU’s sixteenth appearance at the festival, he “would be pleased to take the band anywhere (to perform).”

Saxophonist Ken Partyka, who won an outstanding performance award at the festival, said the lab band’s success “shows that NIU’s jazz program has more to it than just our lead jazz ensemble.

“Elmhurst gave us an outsider’s opinion on what we need to improve on for the concert,” Partyka said.

The jazz lab band’s performance will include a variety of jazz, from the older styles of Count Basie to more contemporary styles of composer Rob McConnell, Garcia said.

Garcia said the band will perform a piece learned “entirely by ear,” in the form of free jazz.

“But we are always expanding our repertoire and can guarantee that the upcoming concert will include works we’ve yet to play in public,” he said.