Hailing from Shawnee Mission East High School, the Blue Knights are the top of two jazz bands at the local public school. The school is located in Prairie Village, Kansas. The Blue Knights are a nationally known jazz ensemble. Every year, the Blue Knights record a tape of 3 Duke Ellington songs to send in to the national Essentially Ellington Festival. The top 15 bands in the nation are invited to New York City to play at Lincoln Center. The Blue Knights have made the Top 15 and been invited to play in New York twice, in 2001, and then again in 2006. The Blue Knights are one of, if not the premier high school jazz band from the Midwest. The Blue Knights attend around 2-3 jazz festivals every year, and at every festival since 1997 they have failed to receive anything less than 1st place. The only exception to this is the Essentially Ellington Festival in NYC. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/SME+Blue+Knights">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.