About halfway through Ignited’s 90 minute set at Redondo Beach’s annual Springfest fair, baritone saxophonist Hunter Cross beams. He and tenor saxophonist Matthew Nelson are off to the side resting their chops among friends, while Jesse Eads, on bass, Max Huggins, on guitar and keyboard, and Matthew Lucas, on drums and vocals, grooved through Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious.”
“This is like our one year anniversary,” Cross says. “A year ago, Jesse’s mom got us in contact with the organizers, and now we’re playing gigs from people who saw us here then.”
The quintet is made up of local high schoolers, four from Mira Costa and one from Redondo Union, but they’ve all known each other for quite a while, and play like it, too.
Occasionally the tempo sags, but the interplay between the group is tight. Not everyone solos on each song, but exchanges between the young players are strong, even through old jazz standards and ballads.
The five regularly gig along the coast, from Venice to El Segundo to Hermosa Beach, and while the money must be nice, the teens really beam as their friends cheer for them.
About 30 minutes later, Ignite drops into another funky Stevie Wonder song, and the audience is digging it. Eads’ bass thumps, and just before they lay into Wonder’s “I Wish,” Lucas shouts “I want to hear y’all clap!”
The crowd happily obliges. ER
