The NIU Marching New Orleans Jazz Band, a new student-led combo, hasn’t been so lucky in avoiding attention.

Instead of rehearsing in the fluorescent-lit, linoleum-tiled rehearsal rooms of the music building, they rehearse on the sidewalks, roads and courtyards of the NIU campus.

It turns out that while most people appreciate the mobile band’s joyful sounds, there are some apartment dwellers and one very angry CA who don’t.

One recent Monday night the Neptune Hall community adviser called the police, who stopped the musicians in the middle of a rousing rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

The band took the police’s advice and moved their “rehearsal time” a little bit earlier in the day, from 11 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Led by Sophomore Jazz Studies Performance major Jim Schram, the new group is loudly blazing a new trail in the jazz combo program.

“When we’re learning about [jazz], we’re always told to go as far back to the roots of whoever plays your instrument as possible,” said Schram, who plays clarinet in the group.

It’s tough to go much further back than the early 20th Century New Orleans jazz parades.

“It’s jazz before jazz got all complicated,” said sousaphone player and third-year music education graduate student Eric Miller.

Schram describes the formation of the group as “a complete experiment.” The group was established last year with a different roster and repertoire. They also stayed in their seats.

Inspired by a marching jazz group he saw at the Ravinia Festival years ago, Schram had an itch to get the band on its feet. But first, he needed a sousaphone player to cover the role of the bass.

When Eric Miller, primarily a trombone player, approached Schram earlier this semester to tell him about a sousaphone he’d just purchased, the signs were all too clear.

He promptly corralled some of NIU’s top jazz students to round out the lineup.

The current group includes Schram on clarinet, Miller on sousaphone, Dan Burke on saxophone, John McQuade on trumpet, Ron Jacoby on trombone, Juan Pastor on snare drum, and Dan Pratt on bass drum. All members are music majors.

The group’s repertoire consists mostly of the old spirituals a New Orleans jazz band might have played at a funeral or parade 100 years ago. This includes tunes like “Saints,” “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” and “Amazing Grace.”

Like a traditional parade band would have done, they perform the old hymns in a sloppy jazz style, giving every band member license to improvise and interpret the melody in his own way.

Schram says he didn’t know what to expect from passersby on their marches, but has been thrilled with the reception so far.

“I can’t tell you how many people walk up to us and tell us, ‘you are amazing,'” Schram said. Miller said onlookers are constantly “hootin’, hollerin’ and singing along.”

If random passers-by have given rave reviews, the reception at tonight’s NIU Jazz Combo Fest should be stellar.

The event, held twice a semester at The House Café, 263 E. Lincoln Highway, is a performance venue for all seven school combos.

While most groups will set up on-stage, play a few tunes, and offer a polite farewell, the Marching New Orleans Jazz Band will take a longer route to the stage.

They plan to march in from the front doors, through the crowd and up to the stage before playing the rest of their set on stage and marching back out again with a reading of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”