Calkins: After a year of triumph, death and music, the Central High jazz band plays on
Central High jazz band director Ollie Liddell conducts the band during a celebetory concert at the New Daisy Theater on Beale Street on May 29, 2025. (Greg Campbell/Special to The Daily Memphian)
Geoff Calkins
Geoff Calkins has been chronicling Memphis and Memphis sports for more than two decades. He is host of "The Geoff Calkins Show" from 9-11 a.m. M-F on 92.9 FM. Calkins has been named the best sports columnist in the country five times by the Associated Press sports editors, but still figures his best columns are about the people who make Memphis what it is.
This year the Central High jazz band assembled to hear the news online.
Snow and ice had closed the school. It would be a virtual unveiling this time.
Would they be invited back to the Essentially Ellington contest in New York? Had they made the finals yet again?
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