Heading for home and taking the band with him

Arlington High School's band director, Sabato D'Agostino, will return to his hometown of Salerno, Italy, over February vacation, and he will take the school's Jazz Band with him.

For 10 days, the band will tour the region, presenting its last concert at the Teatro Augusteo of Napoli, one of Italy's most prestigious venues.

"I've always wanted to share with my friends and family in Italy what I do here in the States," D'Agostino said. "But that's not the real reason we're taking this trip. I believe I owe it to these kids to give them the experience of their lives because they work so hard."

The trip has attracted the attention of Gianni Gallo, an independent producer for the RAI Italian TV network, who is creating a documentary program about it.

"When we are in Italy, Gianni will be following us, almost like Big Brother but in a nice way, filming the kids' reaction to Italian culture," D'Agostino said. "He wants to capture it all."

The 21-member band, which has 11 new players, has been working extra hard to perfect its 13-piece repertoire. D'Agostino has added a two-hour evening rehearsal each week to its usual two 7 a.m. practices.

"This band is motivated," D'Agostino said. "They are excited about going to Italy, and they want to improve.

"They are also a real group of friends."

Jazz Band bass guitarist Jack Breslin put it this way: "Everyone comes together in the band, and it brings out the best in all of us." And Jazz Band percussionist Gaetano Zagami, who was born in the United States but whose family is Sicilian, said he has been talking to his relatives who live overseas. "They just can't wait to see us," he said.

D'Agostino arrived in Boston in 1995 to study at the Berklee College of Music and took over as the director of the Arlington High School band and orchestra three years later after receiving a bachelor's degree in performance.

Known as "Mr. D" to his students and as "Tino" to the rest of the world, D'Agostino has been a musician most of his life. When he was 5 years old, his father, who had a day job as a policeman, began teaching him to play drums. By the time he was 14, he was attending a public high school, taking lessons at a conservatory twice a week, and teaching in the music school operated by his family.

A classical trumpeter turned jazz bassist, D'Agostino garnered 10 academic degrees and certificates, mostly in various aspects of music, before immigrating to the United States.

D'Agostino said that he had been thinking about the trip to Italy ever since joining the high school music staff eight years ago and, with logistical help from high school choral director Cheryl Christo, "we've finally been able to make it a reality."

D'Agostino said Italians love jazz but don't have many opportunities to hear it live. So, the program he has planned is designed to help educate them about this indigenous American art form. It will chronicle the history of jazz, including blues, ragtime, swing, big band, bebop, hardbop, and funk-rock fusion, and will feature such classics as "In the Mood" and "Take the A Train," as well as more contemporary pieces, such as "Four" by Miles Davis, "Chameleon" by Herbie Hancock and others, and "Birdland" by Joe Zawinul.

The trip, which D'Agostino christened "JazzItalia 2007," will cost about $2,000 per student. The band has held numerous fund-raisers to help defray expenses, including a car wash, rummage sale, spaghetti supper, and raffle. Following performances at Arlington's Town Day, the Berklee Performance Center, and other venues, the students have solicited donations from the public.

One highlight of the tour will be a collaboration with the orchestra of the Monterisi public school in Salerno. D'Agostino said it is unusual to have music offered in an Italian public school. Italian students who want to study music usually attend either a private school or a conservatory, he said.

The ensembles will perform two pieces together, one of which, "Jazz Sweet," was written for the occasion by Pasquale Tassone, director of fine arts for the Arlington public schools. Tassone, Christo, and Arlington High principal Charles Skidmore are also going on the trip.

" 'Jazz Sweet' was written to accommodate string instruments into the jazz band, since we will be joined by a string orchestra when we perform it," Tassone said. "This is the first trans-Atlantic trip for the jazz band, and we are very pleased about it."

Skidmore said he is "extremely proud of the work AHS music students do.

"What I like most about our jazz band is that the students enjoy themselves so much when they're on stage. You can see and hear the passion they have for jazz in every performance."

For D'Agostino, the tour will be a milestone in several respects. For one thing, he will be appearing for the first time in his native country as a conductor rather than as a performer.

"People who know me will realize that the ensemble I am conducting is like a baby I have nurtured for years and is now grown up.

"Italian audiences take music seriously and are extremely critical. Even people who don't know me will appreciate the high level of this group's performance, especially considering that its members are not professionals but public high school students."

"JazzItalia 2007" also marks D'Agostino's first return to Italy since he became an American citizen in June. Now he holds dual citizenship, and this change in his status makes the trip truly an Italian-American event, representing a conjunction of the old world and the new.

To his thoroughly modern students, the tour offers an opportunity to encounter an ancient and distinguished culture. To D'Agostino, as an American and a native of Italy, it will be both a homecoming and the fulfillment of a dream.

He said he believes the band members will draw important lessons that will transcend music.

"Trips of this kind are so important to kids and such a great experience. Most of my students have never been to Europe or anywhere else outside the United States. By visiting another country, they learn life lessons and become different, not only in terms of musicianship, but in terms of the way they are as people."