Why go all the way to New Orleans to hear award-winning live jazz? It’s already in Santa Barbara.

City College’s Lunch Break and Good Time bands will be on stage for Jazz night, Monday Oct. 26, at SOhO music club.

Lunch Break instructor James Mooy said the band has 22 musicians and is an advanced student group. A few of the members don’t go to City College. One even drives up from Ventura.

“It used to be at noon so people who have jobs in town could come during their lunch breaks and play,” Mooy said. “That’s why it’s called Lunch Break.”

The band has won major awards including competitions at the Reno Jazz Festival.

“The quality of the music is unusually high,” Mooy said.

Mooy said “I Got What” is the hardest song Lunch Break will perform. It has the chords from “I Got Rhythm” made into a different song and with a much faster tempo, but it still sounds similar to the original. At a speed of “warp five,” it’s a difficult piece, especially for the saxophone players, who need extra practice to get it perfect.

They will also play “Nutville,” which Mooy said is, “from the glory days of the buddy rich band,” as well as a ballad featuring San Francisco State University graduate James Watson on trumpet.

Mooy said the songs have been written by professional musicians, but during a performance, there is a lot of improvisation.

“Whenever they got a long solo and the rest of the band is playing, they’re making it up, and there are times when the music stops and they get to do their own thing,” Mooy said. “I never know what’s going to happen then.”

There are three jazz combos at City College. Lunch Break is an advanced group, and playing with them on Monday is Good Time.

The Good Time student ensemble is too good to be considered beginner or intermediate level said Mooy, and referred to them as an “advanced student group.”

“All you have to do is go to any other community college in California and hear the band, they usually only have one, and usually it’s not that cool,” he said. “We’re lucky to have three cool bands”

The instructor said that he likes jazz music because it’s interactive and he never knows what’s going to happen, which is fun.

Mooy said it’s exciting for the people who don’t mind loud music to be close to the band.

“When you hear a band, all the noise is moving at you from twenty different sources, it’s the air moving at you, you can feel it, your whole body vibrates,” he said. “It’s like being in a tornado.”