Carson High’s Jacques to march in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

On their bus ride back from the Rose Parade in 2022, Carson High School’s band director Nick Jacques recalled the enthusiasm all the national marching band directors had as a band performing for the 5.5-mile parade route on New Year’s Day.

“We received … such interesting and positive publicity from the Rose Parade a year and a half ago, they reached out to the directors and organizers of the original band directors’ marching band to invite them all back to New York City at the end of this year,” Jacques said last week.

Jacques has been selected to join a marching band of more than 400 band directors from across the country in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Nov. 23.

Following its inaugural appearance in the 2022 Rose Parade, the Saluting America’s Band Directors project is bringing together band directors to New York City under the theme, “America’s band directors: We teach music. We teach life.”

“We were having so much fun, everyone was in and all excited,” he said. “They worked it out behind the scenes. The first dibs went to everyone that was marching out as an original member in the Rose Parade and then they opened up new applications. It was over 200 (members) for the first parade. Now there’s going to be 400 for the second one.”

Courtesy Nick Jacques

Carson High School band director Nick Jacques marched in the 2022 Rose Parade with the Saluting America’s Band Directors project.

 

The band will be directed by nationally acclaimed music educator and band director Jon Waters. The sponsoring organization supporting the Saluting America’s Band Directors project is the Michael D. Sewell Memorial Foundation based in Pickerington, Ohio. The foundation was created in 2017.

Jacques, who will play his trombone again, said band members are preparing music that will serve as a tribute to New York’s Big Apple, including George Gershwin’s “Strike Up the Band,” a medley featuring 76 trombones, and Aaron Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring.”

“We’ll be playing Taps, the national anthem and “God Bless America” for a performance at the 9/11 memorial, which I’m extremely excited to do,” he said.

The schedule will be busy with rehearsals and meetings and parade day will be early, he said.  Jacques said while the Macy’s route is shorter compared to the Rose Parade — at two and a half miles — it will draw a much larger televised viewership.

Jacques’ students at Carson High, always supporting their director, created a good-luck video to encourage him as he began rehearsing and memorizing his music.

“When I did this parade in Pasadena with the Rose Parade, I think the one thing I was thinking about was how much of an impact is it going to have on my kids when they see me marching in the parade as a band director and doing the thing they do as students and the thing I ask them to do as students and leading by example,” Jacques said.

“Although we have continued to be a first-place group in our area and continued to be competitive even out of Northern California, showing the kids that band is something they can pursue their whole lives really does mean a whole lot.”