It’s been a few weeks since my husband and I have gotten out to a jazz show in our little Appalachian community, but this weekend we had a real treat. Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra band came to Roanoke, and after I overstuffed myself with wine and burrata, Brussels sprouts, frites, and a banana trifle at a favorite restaurant nearby, we took our seats in the sold-out concert hall.

When the 15 players came on stage — five saxophones, three trombones, four trumpets, drums, upright bass, and keys — they wore matching suits with tan oxford shoes, pale blue shirts, and silvery blue ties. It’s rare these days to see people dressed up, or musicians outside of a symphony orchestra coordinating their clothes. This choice of dress elevated the show before they played a single note: their uniformity gave the instruments and the music a non-distracting backdrop to stand out against. What class.

One of my favorite things about jazz shows, besides having little idea what I’m in for and the fact that jazz is mutable and improvisational so it’s always different and created right there in the moment, is when the audience is clearly into it, and they shout “yeah!” at random moments — the yeah or go on or that’s right just erupts out of them when they’re moved — and their contribution joins the soundscape as a part of the co-created music. It feels like what I imagine it feels like when people catch the spirit in church and shout Hallelujah, preach!, and thank you, Jesus.

Typically in our little mountain region, where most of the jazz crowd are white haired white folk, the audience is fairly subdued in their REI and Columbia outdoor gear outfits. We do usually get a few yeahs, but it’s pretty tame. The audience Saturday night really turned out though. Many of the men wore sport coats and spiffy shoes, and women wore dresses and shawls and pretty heels. And during the show itself, the audience was super into it, whistling and calling out in all the right places, and Wynton Marsalis loved it, chuckling a deep gravelly chuckle when he’d get on the mic to talk about the next song and someone would shout out “Obed!” (the drummer) or “I love you!” He told us we were a great audience, which he surely says to every audience, but still, I was proud of us when he said it.

The featured image was during the encore, when only a subset of the band came out to play a swinging New Orleans style song to close out the show.