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Sonny LaRosa and
America's Youngest Jazz Band


'What could they know about swinging'?

A renowned jazz critic, wandering into a concert in Clearwater, gets an earful from a youthful band and its 76-year-old trumpet playing leader.


By Lane DeGregory, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES - published October 10, 2002

The concert started like every other: Some kid with a saxophone honked a barely recognizable version of Mary Had a Little Lamb. A girl tried to blow Old MacDonald on her trumpet. The kids booed each other. The band director shook his head. Then he sprung up, arms raised. Bugle Call Rag filled the ballroom.- Just like it always does.

For more than two decades, Sonny LaRosa has been starting every show of America's Youngest Jazz Band that way. He has conducted more than 500 child musicians, none of them older than 12. That night, at the 2002 March of Jazz at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater, Sonny did everything the same way.

Only everything was different. - Click here for the full story


Sonny LaRosa Sonny LaRosa leads members of
America’s Youngest Jazz Band
during a rehearsal in Clearwater.

[Times photo (2000): Scott Keeler]




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Fox 13 News


More about Sonny's band...

Demo (Video)

Upcoming concerts

Eric Darius

Past Performances

Email Sonny


Texas Jazz Festival Tour

Interview with Nat Hentoff



Nat Hentoff's review of the Band in Jan/Feb 2007 issue of Jazz Times

Nat Hentoff devotes a
whole chapter of his
book "American
Music Is"
to Sonny
and the Band