HP Central alum getting band back together

Sep. 19—HIGH POINT — The one thing that has gone wrong since Jaleel Wright returned to his alma mater of High Point Central High School to rebuild its band program happened in Illinois.

The school ordered new marching band uniforms for $100,000, and they arrived this summer looking crisp and sharp in navy blue with white striping and a big, white shoulder patch bearing the school's name and logo, and underneath those the words "Greensboro, N.C."

So they have to go back.

And Wright is making phone calls trying to raise money to pay for wind suits, which are like really nice track suits, for band members who can't afford them — which is most of them. It could be months before replacement uniforms arrive.

It's just the latest recovery project that Wright, 26, a 2014 graduate of High Point Central, has faced since he began the job May 11.

Wright describes himself as a born percussionist — as a child, "I was always beating on things" — who in sixth grade joined the Southern Guilford Middle School band. When he got to high school, band director Gregory Milton convinced him to sign up for band class, where Wright learned numerous instruments.

"Anything he needed me to do, I did it," he said.

But what he valued the most from the experiences of his high school years was the close atmosphere.

"The thing I loved most about the band was the relationships with each other, the bonds we built with each other," he said. "We'd tell each other, 'We're family — one band, one sound.' "

After he graduated high school, there was a change in band directors. When Wright went to the homecoming game in 2015, he found that band alumni were now actively discouraged from mingling with the current band members, so after that he mostly stayed away.

But late last year, as he was completing his bachelor's degree in music at Winston-Salem State University, friends who knew that Wright had decided during college that he would like to be a band director himself started letting him know that the job had come open at High Point Central. He thought he might be too young to be considered, but in December he applied anyway, and he followed up by phoning Principal Mike Hettenbach — several times.

Wright said he had heard that the band program needed to be rebuilt, but he wasn't quite prepared for the "complete chaos" he found.

Other than getting things organized physically, Wright had to begin recruiting students to join the band. More than getting kids to agree, he had to convince them he was going to stick around.

With the kids he was able to recruit, the band got an early start preparing for the new school year, beginning in July, partly as a matter of physical conditioning for marching band, and partly as a matter of building "marching band culture," he said.

The band had about 30 but in recent days gained a few more after stories about Wright ran on local TV news. That would be considered small by many schools, but Wright said it's about what the school had when he was in the band — what he said Milton called "Dirty 30," which meant the band might be small but that didn't mean it couldn't look good or sound good.

"That's what I call my kids now," Wright said.

Asked what his favorite memory so far is, Wright paused, looked off to the side, smiled and said softly, "I've got so many memories with these kids."

But what he chose was the band's performance at High Point Central's football game against T.W. Andrews, the school's biggest rivalry. Because Central's band program had been in disarray so recently, many people either didn't know the band was back or didn't expect it to sound good — which Wright thinks it did.

"My best memory was proving the outside people wrong," he said. "It means a lot that they have come as far as they have in such a short time."

As a first-year band director, Wright said, he calls his former instructors at WSSU often for advice. One of the most important and consistent was to expect many bumps, so he takes a lot of notes on things he wants to do differently next time.

"My first year is like a trial-and-error run," he said. "I'm optimistic right now because I'm just trying different things to see what works."

The main thing he wants to achieve is for the band members to feel comfortable, welcome and accepted, he said. That's evident when watching the easy back-and-forth between Wright and the students, who call him by his first name and don't hesitate to tease him in class when he makes a mistake.

"I want them to know it's OK to work hard. It's OK not to be the best, you just have to keep working," he said.

It's only September, but Wright sees a lot of progress.

"We're starting to find our own sound," he said. "We're starting to find out who we are as a band."