High School Drummer Leads Jazz Band

By Journalist Ms. Jones

BEACON – JB & The Experience performed on Saturday, November 4 at the Towne Crier Café in Beacon. JB & The Experience is a jazz group that mixes traditional and modern jazz and is led by Beacon High School Senior, Jethro Banks, affectionately known as JB. He is the band leader not just because his name is first.

“I’m the leader because of many things. Really its song composition and writing… [knowing] what musicians do what in certain situations… how we’re gonna come in… when to start… having structure… when they will come in and what their placement is in a song ‘cause placement is everything in music to make it sound full and rich… usually I might give directions in concerts or… in the studio… also going over the songs… and what songs are we gonna do for… the concert,” said JB.

JB & The Experience includes JB on drums, his father Arnrai Banks on piano, Kendall Buchanan on bass, and Wilford Lammers on guitar.

“I would select my band members based on their style, their approach… the quality of their experiences… I really would like more younger groups, but… it’s kind of hard for me where I find them at… I choose the older guys with experience, what they can also pull back to me where I feed off of them as well. I wouldn’t get them [younger groups] sometimes because maybe their attitude, maybe they don’t always practice all the time, or they also have other complications that don’t work and… I would like to… fit with somebody who is… older… wiser in certain areas and knows what they’re doing as well just to have the great experience to play with,” said JB.

The older band members don’t have a problem taking direction from a younger person or passing wisdom down to the next generation.

“It is very good to play in a band with a younger person. That doesn’t happen as often as one would think and I think its and honor to play with a young person that… sees music because a lot of younger people are not really looking at musicianship the way they used to. I think that he’s learned how to play with working musicians. A high school musician rarely gets the chance to work with or have musicians around them that work on a regular basis that are actually in the field and are busy. So, I think that experience for him is good,” said Kendall Buchanan, bass player of JB & The Experience, who has toured all over the world and has played for decades. “When a younger person can learn from me, it’s only a good thing because we have to hand this art down.”

Adam Falcon sat in for regular band member Wilford Lammers who normally plays guitar.

“I’m a large supporter of parents that stand by their kids and push their kids to… follow through with their dreams and not every day [do] you see fathers who have their hands on their kid’s careers… It was a treat for me to play with JB & The Experience… He [JB] is still finding his way… He’s learning… He’s not too cocky where he thinks he knows everything. Some kids… his age think they have all the answers and know everything, but he’s open to suggestions and you can hear he’s listening and having a good time,” said Adam Falcon who has opened for the Wailers, played with Jonathan Butler and Roberta Flack, and wrote songs for George Benson.

Opera & Jazz Singer Goldee Green joined the performance to sing “Blue Boss” by Kenny Dorham and “Autumn Leaves” by Joseph Kosma. JB & The Experience has performed with her at different venues.

“I’ve known Jethro Banks, JB, since he was seven and he was playing the drums at many events and already causing quite a sensation because he’s such a beautiful person and wonderful… musician… It [age] really doesn’t matter when you’re dealing with jazz musicians… because there are so many jazz musicians who started out when they were just about Jethro’s age, seventeen, eighteen. Miles Davis… he started performing… seventeen or eighteen years old himself. He went to Juilliard… He started hanging out with Charlie Parker and Lester Young and that whole crowd and by the time he was nineteen he had already put out… his first major album called ‘The Birth of the Cool’ and if you listen to it… you realize he was only nineteen or twenty years old when he totally made such a huge impact in jazz changing it from dance music from the Swing Era to Concert Type music, people would actually sit down and listen… like they would listen to classical music… So, Jethro has the chops,” said Green.

JB’s calling came early.

“I kept saying to my son, which is Jethro’s father, ‘You’re going to have a famous drummer in the family.’ He said, ‘Why do you say that?’ I said, ‘Because Jethro has destroyed my pots and pans, so he’s gonna be a drummer.’ And my son started taking that on and he started giving Jethro drum lessons when he was three years-old,” said Barbara McCaskill, JB’s grandmother.

If you didn’t get a chance to see JB & The Experience at the Towne Crier Café, don’t worry. They are working on their debut CD.

“The new CD project started last year November. The whole thing started out as just an idea to put together some type of jazz works for the schools to look at since he’s going to be going away to school after high school for music. So, we said we’ll do a few songs. Then it grew into nine songs. So, it ended up turning into an album,” said Arnrai Banks, who is also the executive producer of the CD. The name of the CD will be called JB & The Experience and comes out in Spring 2018.

JB manages being on the high honor roll, being very involved with Boy Scouts, and leading a band well.

“It’s a busy life, but I try to… fit everything into a schedule as planned… It’s a lot of structure and organization really,” said JB.

JB even finds time to pay it forward and share his skill with others.

“Me and Jethro met when we were in Peekskill… He invited me to church and I came to his church and now I play the drums. He taught me how to play and now I play for my school… Peekskill High School. I play for the band,” said Israel Torres who also plays for the church during youth services.

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