In what band members are calling a "milestone" achievement, Northwood High School's elite jazz ensemble is celebrating its first superior ratings at last month's All-County Jazz Festival.

The school, which opened in 2004, was given the highest possible accolades for its performance in the annual competition for high school and middle school jazz bands.

The ratings confirmed how far Northwood's music department has come when just four years earlier, Northwood barely had a band at all, said senior Maria Adamson, who plays piano and used to play saxophone in the jazz band.

"It shows our whole music program has improved a lot," she said.

Adamson said the entire high school's music department consisted of one trombone player, one trumpet player, three clarinets and a saxophone player in her freshman year.

"It was a tiny little band," she said.

Now, the jazz ensemble is one of the hardest bands to get into. Auditions are a must, open space is limited and most students have been playing instruments for several years, said Jeff Johns, the instrumental music and marching band director at Northwood.

Still, both Johns and Adamson said the high ratings were a surprise. Last year, the jazz ensemble graduated most of its members, making this year's band a very young one, Johns said.

Johns said about 20 area high schools compete at the jazz festival. Bands are graded on a scale of 100, with 100 being the highest. They perform practiced pieces in front of the judges and then must play a random piece, called a site reading, chosen by the judges.

Johns' band scored 93 out of 100 on the site reading, the score he said he is most proud of because it took more skill.

"You can take a group that can't play well and if you just work on three songs for ever and ever, you can make them sound good," Johns said. "With the sight reading, they have to be good musicians to sound well."

Reflecting on the score, Johns said he thinks his students worked harder than almost any other bunch he's taught while at Northwood.

He also said Northwood's eight-period day allows for students interested in music to take more music classes than at other area high schools, which mostly have seven periods a day.

Although Johns doesn't stress competition for his music students, saying judging can be subjective, Adamson said having a third party weigh in on their skills was significant.

"It's like, ‘We actually got better,'" she said. "We don't just sound better; people are saying we're better."