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After Sam Smith has been loaded down with and the cameras at have gone dark, it’ll be time to shine for Rico Jones, a 17-year-old junior at Denver School of the Arts.

The DSA senior was one of 32 high school students nationwide , on the strength of his application, which included a resume, references and three recorded performances (which you can see below). The band will perform tonight’s nominee party and tomorrow night’s Grammys after-party.

“I feel really blessed to be around students that are as serious as I am about the music,” Jones said by phone this morning from Los Angeles, where he arrived about a week ago. “I feel really challenged by the musicians around me. I’m really learning a lot just through osmosis.”

It’s probably not quite so simple, of course.

“By serious I guess I mean completely in love with the music, and willing to put in the hours needed to be really articulate in what they’re trying to do — and accurate,” Jones said. “And that’s something that a lot of people miss. They want imediate results, but they don’t realize that it takes weeks and months and many hours of repetitive motions.”

Jones called his big week in L.A. nerve-wracking but exciting. Already he and others in the camp have spent time recording an album at Capitol Records. “We recorded several songs for an album for the big band ensemble,” he said. “Several of the horns and myself also recorded with the vocal ensemble for a Tower of Power song and some others.”

In addition to attending DSA, Jones teaches two students of his own, he said.

The tenor sax player was in our pages last year in . Reporter Joe Vaccarelli wrote then:

Saxophonist Rico Jones, 16, was turned off of jazz when he first started sixth grade at Denver School of the Arts because he didn’t feel he was good at it. But after encouragement from his band director, he rededicated himself.

He sure did. Here are those audition videos:

The 57th Grammys air Sunday, Feb. 8, on CBS at 6 p.m. locally.

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