The Engineering Jazz Band was born in the Winter of 2005 as a place to make music in a fun environment. It was very small in the beginning with rehearsals held in peoples living rooms and sheet music funded by the band members.
Since 2005 the band has grown tremendously. We perform regularly at campus events ranging from Frosh Week celebrations to formal faculty dinners. We’ve even been requested to perform at a wedding! After the first month of the term we usually have at least one performance every weekend until the week before exams when we hold our charity gig.
The Engineering Jazz Band was created as an open place for anyone who wanted get away from the grind and play some jazz. As a result, auditions are not held however space fills up quickly. Unfortunately, as we are directly funded by the Engineering Society, preference is given to Engineering students. However, that’s not to say we haven’t had non-engineers, even non-UW students fill up voids when needed. Sign-ups start a few weeks before the semester begins. Check out our join page for more details.
Members are expected to help setup and tear down before and after rehearsals. We do not have dedicated rehearsal space so we have to move our equipment each week from CPH to the SLC.
From time to time sectionals will be held in order to perfect runs and coordination amongst section members. Overall, the band puts in hours and hours of work and each musician can expect at least 5 hours of commitment of week, more in the last month where gigs are almost weekly!
A Little More History
Ally Chan founded the band back in 2005. We asked her, “Why?” and this is what she had to say,
[I don't know] what was going through my head…
Well, we all picked engineering. Something inside of us told us that being a musician may not be the most practical choice, so we picked engineering instead and we all said we’d keep music a part of our lives. I certainly [said so], but I didn’t.
I missed playing a lot. So I thought, why not start a jazz band with other engineers?
I remember having a lot of conversations about how I wasn’t going to let music leave my life. Some of my friends said they’d totally be a part of the band, so I went for it.
From the very beginning I knew at some point, I wanted to consistently have an end of term charity gig. I’m not sure exactly why, the idea of making money for playing music never appealed to me. Just playing music was enough for me, so I thought, why not make the most of it and give to people less fortunate?
There were times where I didn’t want to be part of the jazz band anymore, or I didn’t want to be the head organizer or whatever, but at the end of the day it was what kept me going throughout the week. I always had something to look forward to. I could have the craziest week coming up [but on] Sunday nights for 2 hours I could forget about it all, have fun, and make music. I hope that’s how other people feel too!
Random Facts
For a very short period of time the band had two names as it felt that the two streams were different bands. Eventually it was decided it was best to keep one name, one image, and one idea so now it’s just WRTT.
Here are some of the original names people band names people came up with in 2005:
- orjazzms
- ally and the jazz cats
- speed of sound
- constructive interference
Eventually someone came up with WRTT and it was perfect.