What are some high school jazz band songs?

I am joining the high school jazz band next year. I am sophomore going to be a senior.

Pat Metheny is an awesome jazz guitar player. His charts are super challenging and super fun to play. Check out stuff like “The First Circle” by him – super challenging and super fun, with prominent guitar.

Also, just to learn the basic jazz style, work on chords a TON. Guitar is a rhythm section instrument, meaning you are the canvas for the melodies to be written on. As such, you need to work together with the drummer, the bassist, and the pianist and you need to be rhythmically tight and you need to get all the right chords. Lots of high school “jazz” is actually in the twelve-bar blues form and most of it is in the key of B♭ – so, learn the twelve-bar blues chords and form in B♭. Also, for soloing, work on blues scales (a minor blues scale is exactly like the rock/metal minor pentatonic scale, but with a raised forth as well as a normal fourth).

A hint- almost all blues/jazz chords for guitar, even the weird ones like Gm7♯11♭13, can be built from a standard root-six bar chord (power chord). Don’t be daunted by all the weird chord symbols, just work through each chord methodically starting from a standard bar chord. So, if you know a lot about rock/metal it’s not tremendously hard to jump into jazz.

Mumford & Sons – The Cave