You’ll Pardon Me If I Look Unsurprised

About a year and a half ago, I published an item here which noted some of the people whom I consider influences on my musical life – teaching, performing and arranging.  Somehow, I didn’t spend much time on one of them, and now seems like a moment to adjust that, a bit.

In that post, I described the day on which I first heard a college band play an arrangement of mine in public, in performance, in uniform. It was UMass, and the band’s primary musical arranger was standing next to me. “How’s it feel to write for UMass?” he asked. How did it feel? … “You have no idea,” I said cheerily. “Oh wait, right … you do.” Because the gentleman to whom I was speaking, and this was twenty-two years ago now, had already experienced that feeling, many many times over – in association with that college band, and in association with a number of fine (national-competition-grade) high school bands, and particularly in association with a little group called the Garfield Cadets.

He had come to UMass as the marching band graduate assistant during my junior year (this would be 1986), and although I myself was hardly connected to the drum corps world, I knew that he had already been drum major for one world-championship edition of the Cadets, and brass arranger and caption head for one other. And the more arrangements he cranked out for us, the more clear two things became: [1] he could really write; and [2] as a burgeoning musical arranger hopeful, I needed to get inside his head!

One afternoon we happened to arrive in the same room in Old Chapel, then the home of the band, at the same time. I waved a piece of staff paper at him … yes, this was in the days when we wrote band tunes by hand on actual paper, what about it? … and said, “question. How do you deal with low brass?”

Before he had a chance to provide the obvious snarky answer that came with intentional misunderstanding of my question, I continued, “I came from a high school band that didn’t have much low brass, and I’m a woodwind guy, so I’m not really sure about how to write good notes for low brass.”

He put down whatever he was doing, and said, “okay. Go to the piano. Play three notes that make a chord you like but which don’t make a muddy sound. Put those notes on the trombone 1, 2, and baritone staves. Add a tuba bass line. If it sounds decent on the piano, it’ll be OK in the brass. That’s it, pretty much.”

Simple as that. Except: boy, did I dissect a lot of his handwritten band scores – and saw chords that looked logical enough, and which followed that rule, and which looked pretty innocent (B flat, F, B flat, D … B flat major … OK, got that) … but somehow, bands that played those relatively innocuous-looking chords and such … sounded disproportionately great. There was some other element to his work that tended to transcend merely writing the right notes.

Throughout my time as a band person – playing, conducting, arranging, instructing – I have undertaken this process an awful lot:

Step one: listen to a score by this gentleman played by a decent band or corps.

Step two: smile and admire.

Step three: wish I could claim to have written it myself.  I mean!– Silverado, Jupiter … Phantom, Henry V … Pirates … and that’s before we get over into the drum corps world, about which I need say only one thing: Appalachian Flippin’ Spring!

Here are a few other examples of this gentleman’s fine work: as performed by the UMass Minuteman Marching Band, or the Garfield Cadets of Bergen County (well, he wrote for them for a long while!), or Carolina Crown … just to name a few of the groups that have benefited from his writing and whatever it is that he does in order to teach an ensemble to make such sounds! Heck, he even wrote an arrangement that made me enjoy Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” — and there’s a tune I don’t care for at all.

Today, came the announcement: Michael Klesch will be inducted into the Drum Corps International Hall of Fame this summer.

Not a shock, exactly.

Bravo, sir.

Perspective

The slight delay in blog posting hereabouts has had mostly to do with my month of July, which featured a whole lot of travel, at least half of which had to do with professional development.

First: to New Hampshire, for the New England Band Directors Institute, a three-day affair in which band directors from New England (and elsewhere) gather – with instruments – to attend workshops, to read new band literature, to be conducted by one or more massively influential band conductors, and to have our attitudes (unofficially) adjusted. We’re a relatively small group – people who are pretty passionate about a topic that maybe not a lot of other people may quite understand. If you’ve seen the movies “Mr. Holland’s Opus” or “Drumline”, at least in my opinion, you still might not understand it.

Then: to Gordon College, for a similar gathering of choral directors from Massachusetts. Same idea; same level of “the rest of the world may not quite embrace this subject nearly as tightly as we do”! Off the top of my head I can’t come up with any movies that have been made about choir directors, either. “The Choir”, maybe.

Then to the mid-Atlantic, for some professional development wrapped up in a vacation: my annual pilgrimage to the American Shakespeare Center, in Staunton, VA. Tucked away in the mountains of Virginia, this little theater is modeled after the one in which William Shakespeare his own self put on his, um, skits. And it’s populated by some really fine actors. This year I saw “Hamlet”, which is perhaps a bit less light than the plays I’d seen there previously – “Much Ado About Nothing” (in which the ASC made me forget Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson and Denzel Washington and Kate Beckinsale, and instead remember Sarah Fallon and Rene Thornton, Jr.), and “The Taming of the Shrew”. With all due respect: Shakespeare enthusiasts are passionate but they don’t usually get nearly the attention that Tom Cruise and things blowing up do, on the big screen. Sometimes for good reason: the English Department professor who taught the Shakespearean Lit course that I took during my sophomore year at UMass seemed just plain deranged sometimes – in his view, every single element of a Shakespearean play represented some sort of sexual imagery. (Sometimes, Doc, “the dagger I see before me, the handle towards my hand” is just a dagger!) Anyway, if you tell the average American someone that you adore “Twelfth Night”, they may wonder if you mean some sort of winter holiday celebration.

Most recently: my annual two-week total-immersion course in the art of the drum major, courtesy of the West Chester, PA and UMass-Amherst versions of the George N. Parks Drum Major Academy. Now, talk about a gathering of rather passionate and relatively not-understood people: not only are they what the media would condescendingly call “band geeks”, but these young people will be their bands’ “head band geeks”! And they’ll be taught by people who have made band directing, and also drum major instruction, a large and important part of their lives. A documentary about this activity may not guarantee a major TV network knockout ratings, exactly.

But for 13 summers, I’ve participated in what is, for me, arguably the most professionally and personally enjoyable fortnight of the year. Until this year, I got to work for George N. Parks, who may not have been well-known outside the marching music industry, but inside of it he was the top dog. How lucky I was, for 12 years, to be able to look over and say, “hey, Mr. Parks, how do?” while most of the students and other participants in the West Chester and UMass clinics would see him coming and whisper, “–that’s George Parks!” with a certain amount of hero worship audible in those whispers. He was a genuine Hall-of-Famer, after all. And following his passing this past year, the DMA company took a deep breath, gathered itself and continued on; and during my two weeks of immersion this summer, I got to watch another master teacher, Heidi Sarver, gather up the reins and lead students – and staff – through this experience.

More than once, we DMA staff members have watched the kids go from being slightly bewildered new DMA students to being truly passionate student leaders, and we’ve heard their explosive cheering and nearly-foaming-at-the-mouth reactions to the goings-on, led by Mr. Parks … and we’ve quietly remarked, “it’s a good thing they’re on the good side of the Force.” To an outsider, the exhortations of the staff and the responses of the kids could easily seem right on the edge of, or maybe further into the realm of, a cult. No one is speaking in tongues, mind you; but when 300 or 400 high school students suddenly bellow “Together! In! Out! Frozen! Up! With Pride! With Pride!” and the listener has no idea what any of it means, I can imagine that it can make for some nervous wondering.

(The kids are just describing how various body parts are, in the attention position, but it may not be totally obvious.)

 

It’s occurred to me that I actually belong to a number of groups that fit this description: they … WE … are passionate about a particular topic; we commit a great deal of our personal time to it; we don’t always understand why the outside world doesn’t also treasure that topic; and we get a little miffed when the outside world says things like, “…I don’t get it. It’s weird.”

I will of course list these.

[] Marching band. (As is partly chronicled above; as is surely chronicled in most of the posts in this blog since last September.) This is an activity that can create marvelous sounds and images; and, taught right, it can yield philosophies for life and strategies for dealing with people and events that can be used in a lifelong way. (“Band is a place for everyone.”) Or … it can be the silliest-looking thing on planet Earth. As my DMA colleague Jamie Weaver once said to a roomful of student leaders, “let’s be honest, gang, we’re running around a field playing instruments that shouldn’t be outside, waving flags, and wearing chickens on our heads.”

[] Musical theater. For the love of heaven, please let’s set aside the stereotypes about theater people and their particular orientations. Statistically speaking, most activities in the world feature one person out of every ten who’s not facing the same way as the other nine, and does that excuse abusive behavior? Sorry, no. … Anyway, musical theater: done right, it gives young people the chance to discover the fun of performance, in an environment where they don’t have to decide it’s what they want to do forever, but could! Done wrong, it sounds like the “Whose Line Is It Anyway” activity where two actors play a scene in different styles suggested by the audience: when someone calls out “community theater!”, the actors get stilted and awful and break character and giggle.

[] Curling. An intriguing sport that I don’t play, I just watch, probably for lack of opportunity – and the fact that if I crouch down to play catcher in baseball, at least I’m using two feet; if I go to launch the curling rock and have to slide along the ice, I’m quickly going from one foot to one backside and an elbow, and zero dignity. It’s a sport, but it doesn’t look like the four major spectator sports at all, and I certainly understand why other people might look at someone standing on a sheet of ice with a little broom in their hand and might cry out, as commentator Charlie Pierce has done, “…SPORTS?!!!?”

[] Left-leaning politics. Thanks to my upbringing and my observations during the later years of my public and collegiate education, I see certain issues certain ways. I have to work really hard to read right-leaning political essays and comprehend how anybody could view the same issues in such a different light. (My suspicion, based on some recent historical non-fiction that I’ve read, is that the radical, reactionary right-wing politics currently in vogue are only distantly related to the beliefs put forth as “classic” Republican platform planks.) That said, I have a few friends and colleagues who are Republicans and occasionally they’ve said things and I’ve seen their points. I like those people because sometimes they’re mystified by my politics but we’re still friends anyhow.

[] Star Trek. Enough said. … Although I will say this: in fourth grade, I wore a Captain Kirk shirt on school picture day. I do not do the equivalent thing now. I went to one Trek convention, in Boston in 1992, mainly because it featured Patrick Stewart as the keynote speaker and I’d go to the ends of the earth to listen to that guy improv for an hour. (On the subway, heading into Boston, I sat next to a family of four, also going to the convention … and Mom, Dad, Jimmy and Jane all wore full Starfleet uniforms. I decided it was okay for them and that I was okay where I was.)

So, once in a while you bump into a group of people, enthusiasts regarding a particular topic, who are so passionate that it blinds them to the possibilities that [1] their activity may not be the best thing since sliced bread, and that [2] other people who “don’t get it” should be allowed to “not get it” and not take abuse for it.

For example, I’m a big ol’ fan of “A Prairie Home Companion”, which may be the only remaining weekly variety show left on American radio. Every week, as my dad would have said, “I have my folksy humor batteries fully charged”. Late in the two-hour show, Garrison Keillor largely improvises a twenty-minute monologue purporting to chronicle the recent week’s current events in “the little town that time forgot”, Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above-average – and where all the characters are right on the edge of being stereotypical homespun, myopic and faintly backward Midwesterners. I have heard more marvelous parables acted out by these characters than I can count. The musicians on the program are some of the finest in America. The writing is superb. But plenty of Midwesterners, Lutherans and others have mistaken Keillor’s works for mockery. For every 99 Keillor admirers, there’s one listener that doesn’t get the joke, or doesn’t get that sometimes all it is is a gentle joke.

This summer, I read a book by the marvelous writer Sarah Vowell, called “Radio On”. It’s a diary of a year of listening to the radio. Vowell doesn’t just listen to one station in one city; she listens wherever she goes, to many different stations with different formats, and makes some very astute comments about sounds coming out of her radio and about large issues as illuminated by those sounds. Some of her comments rake NPR over the coals, but manage to avoid whitewashing NPR and its listeners as snooty elitists, while still making some good points about ways in which NPR could probably lighten up a bit. In a couple of chapters, Vowell dumps on Garrison Keillor pretty firmly. I happen not to share her disdain. She may be a little too acerbic and sharp-tongued and smart-ass by nature (which generally works for her) to appreciate Keillor’s act; but I wouldn’t begrudge her the opportunity to be so. I happen to like “Prairie Home” for a lot of reasons besides his observations about humans via his mythical little town, and I wish someone could explain it to Ms. Vowell in a way that would break through her deflectors (hello!; Star Trek nerd reference!) and help her understand what he’s going for. But I get why she and other people might not “get it.”

 

In my first job out of college, I worked in the light-manufacturing department of a biotechnology company. I often would assemble thousands of little plastic pieces, or do equally repetitive things, in a given week. For about three weeks that winter, I was (figuratively, and sort of literally) pinned behind my drill press while another manufacturing department member tried doggedly to get me to join his church. By the time those three weeks had become three weeks, it was borderline harassment. I finally whispered to my department supervisor that if Jacques (not his real name) said one more word to me about how great my life would become if I joined the Houston Church of Christ (not its real name; a singular organization not affiliated with the more well-known Church of Christ denomination) and about why the church I did attend was just not sufficient to ensure my ascent into Heaven at the end of this earthly life … then I was going to march straight into the office of the president of this 40-member company and take up his valuable time asking him to supervise the removal this yahoo from my life.

Astonishing how easy it is to stumble into situations where, inadvertantly, you can poke a nest with a stick – and run afoul of a swarm of True Believers.

So I try to forgive people for not understanding the meaning of “Starred Thoughts™”, or for not agreeing that Jean-Luc Picard became a better starship captain right around the beginning of season three, or for rooting for the Canadiens over the Bruins, or vice-versa. And I hope we can convince more people, someday soon, that if they do accidentally poke the bear, they should at least be left alive – figuratively, literally, whichever. Because if some of the people who populate our nation’s capitol have inadvertantly taught us anything in the past few weeks, it’s this:

A little perspective can only be helpful.

DCI At the Movies (or, “Do You Remember Green Grass?”)

(re-posted, with after-the-fact Editor’s Notes (though not many), from Facebook)

(It was August, and one could wear shorts outside without dying instantly.)

(In other words, it was a LONG time ago.)

 

Well, 2 million other people on the Internets are waxing opinionated about this year’s drum corps shows, so why shouldn’t I?

Having said that: here are the usual disclaimers: these remarks are for entertainment purposes only; no flames, no wailing and gnashing of teeth. I know a few folks connected with a few corps, and I like all the corps. Some years I like the field shows better than others. And my expertise in the percussion and guard worlds is so small as to be not worth considering, so forgive me – I’ve not given them their due. And the late great Donnie Jenness trained me to watch the guard and the other visual components when I go to a show. So (this is the difficult part for online people): remain calm. One man’s opinion; nobody asked.

First, the actual production values: once the theater figured out how to pick up the BIG, LOUD AND LIVE 7 satellite feed (for a while it was “Quiet, Dark and Nervous”), picture and sound were as close to great as is probably possible. I just have this horrible memory of the first year they put DCI on the big screen: every third corps, the picture froze and the sound cut out. At first, everyone murmured. The next time, everyone grumbled. From the third time on, the natives got restless.

Steve Rondinaro was exceptionally non-irritating – I usually like him, but five hours of live broadcasting can stretch anyone’s talents. (No “this place is electric” though? There were a couple of opportunities for that old chestnut. And no Reliable Rondo prediction? OK, maybe picking the Devils these days is like picking the Yankees.) John Madden, director of the Michigan State marching band, was only partly as effective as advertised, as a musicology analyst; mostly vanilla and unwilling to critique. Dennis DeLucia, for the first time in my experience, was not irritating, but rather came off as faintly humorous and on occasion honest and exactly right in his criticism. Generally, there were far fewer awkward, embarrassing (or unintentional-laugh) moments than usual.

Best speech of the night: Marc Sylvester’s reaction after his Blue Knights’ performance: were the Knights great tonight? “No.” Oddest duck of the evening: the older of the marching Cavalier brothers, in their interview after the Cavs’ show. (This moment must have rankled the corps veterans: his younger brother gushed about what a thrill it was to play his favorite instrument with the Cavaliers: piano.) Best decision of the night: not to use those recently aged-out DCI performers as sideline reporters anymore. Fine people, and largely unable to communicate their marching experience and knowledge on TV.

Al Chez stepped to the 50-yardline with his trumpet and squealed something that was supposed to resemble “America the Beautiful”. Instead it sounded like a stuck pig. (Later, Chez was interviewed and was only slightly more articulate. Stick to the horn, sir.)

Two random notes: [1] The first drop of the evening wasn’t a rifle. It was a human. Some poor trumpet player in the Troopers show went down in a heap early in the show, while backing up about 10 steps off the front sideline, and it wasn’t even Cadets drill. [2] DCI performers now risk dislocated knees every night. Not from the stress of moving at 160 bpm – but from the weirdo bodywork leg-kickouts that formerly only the Blue Knights, but now all corps, seem to need to do now.

 

So, on to the actual shows (and incidentally, since I was such a World Cup fan this summer, I will use World Cup grammar: “Toronto HAVE beaten the Red Sox”. “Academy have a good show”).

 

I’m glad the TROOPERS are back in the hunt for finals. Drum corps was weird while they were away. But their show this year didn’t involve me like I wanted it to. For all their talk about how emotionally-charged the “Wanted” theme was, and for all the emoting that the broadcasters did about it afterward, I thought it was an enjoyable but not especially meaningful 11 minutes, with the exception of the Copland moment five minutes in. I’m always a sucker for Copland. And what in the world, out of nowhere, was that?! – on the final note, at the 50-yardline a guard member pulled a pretend revolver on the drum major, who raises his arms in surrender and THAT was the closing image on a thirty-foot high movie screen? Get me rewrite!

The COLTS were a mess. Plain and simple. Adrenalin made a wreck of their opener, front sideline to backfield (it took a complete 90 seconds for them to sound like they were agreeing on a tempo). The hornline bodywork (which seems a prerequisite for every corps, since the Blue Devils’ drumline tipped this way and that in 2008) played absolute havoc with their ability to control their musical performance.

Technically, musically, ACADEMY were in control like the Colts weren’t. But their show seemed very muted because of it, certainly at the beginning; and only by the end of the show did they almost seem to make a cinema-shaking impact.

Two years ago, the GLASSMEN‘s circus show hinted that they were a corps that could design something other than a teeth-clenchingly intellectual show. So much for that trend. I was glad the broadcasters told me what the show was about, so that I could know that I still didn’t get it. The Prayer Cycle was a “spiritual, not a religious show.” In that spirit (sorry), I could’ve done without the near-Star of David and the multiple cross drill sets in the finale. Not to get overly picky, but those symbols of religion honestly distracted me from whatever spiritual interpretation of “hope” the closer was meant to convey.

 

Madison.

Oh, MADISON!

They were right, Scouts: this is what you are supposed to be doing. Let us bid a fond farewell to the anemic Madison of recent memory. Prime, Hannum, etc., created a super design for a comeback show. No frills, just in-your-face. (Or at least, the frills didn’t look frilly.) This was the ONLY show that actually had me grinning from beginning to end. And this was theoretically a young corps? Just wait till they’re a bit older and more experienced. Hide the valuables!

And yet… playing a Madison Scouts, crowd-pleasing, “old-school drum corps” show will never get them near the top 5, let alone another title. As long as they’re OK with that.

(The broadcast offered up a classic Madison moment from 1975, i.e. the last time they did “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” … and it proved beyond a doubt that the old days were absolutely not the good old days. Oh, did that brass tone and intonation sting.)

 

BLUE KNIGHTS were fine. That’s about what I could come up with afterward. They’re solid, but they always seem to play so antiseptically. And in the same way as the Glassmen, a couple of years ago the Knights actually appeared to have fun doing a show; but… that was then, I guess.

A couple of details: I could not watch their head drum major. Forgive me, I just got back from Drum Major Academy conducting sessions; and I can deal with some of the “traditional” (and odd) conducting patterns of past Santa Clara, Star of Indiana, and Blue Devil conductors … but while I’m sure he’s a good person, beats 2 and 3 made him look like a flailer, and in the finale, he was conducting as if it was “Malaguena” … and it wasn’t. And while I’m not an expert on this matter, the BK color guard struck me as not clean, all night long. I’m not so much thinking of rifle drops, but of coordination of equipment work – throughout the show, it was as if half the people were working slightly behind the tempo. (And sadly, one BK quad player will forever be remembered as the guy who dropped a drumstick in the middle of a solo feature, on 500 screens nationwide.)

CRUSADERS: I honestly wasn’t sure how they were going to follow last year, which I liked very much, both in theme and execution. Well then – THAT’S how. A theme (the always-empty throne!) that was just deep enough to provide a framework for fun drum corps tricks and effects, but not so philosophy-laden that it got in the way of appreciating the physical performance in front of me. How to summarize this show? I want to see it again. Boston were like the Blue Knights, but with fire and unpredictability. When they needed to emote or make an impact, they let you have it. And you never QUITE knew what was coming next. Cool.

BLUE STARS: I can’t even explain why I liked their Houdini show so much. As with the Crusaders, not enough “plot” to bog down the performance, but a serious atmosphere created by the early straitjacket motif, and did they play a major chord all night? I can’t recall. Very mysterious-magicky stuff. Liked it. I guess I’d call it “good ‘n’ creepy”. The Stars’ uniforms (design and almost monochromatic color) really helped, in a way I also can’t adequately phrase (maybe it gave them a look of a newspaper photo from Houdini’s time?? Nah). The show left me frowny, but in a good way. As contrasted with a later entrant in green jerseys…

I would think that SANTA CLARA VANGUARD had just about as much fun as you can have with the music of Bartok. The broadcasters were so busy preparing the audience for dissonant music that might be difficult to listen to, that they forgot to note that most of the 1990s featured nothing but. Lots to look at, all the time; creative and watchable drill; terrific musical performance (with the exception of the electronics, which in concept were appropriate but can someone please turn the master volume down from 11 to about 8?!!). Perhaps my favorite moment was the popcorn-like effect of various horn players popping up and down in conjunction with musical accents, early in the show. It looked like a trippy game of Whack-a-Mole. Hee hee.

PHANTOM REGIMENT performed the most powerful and challenging show that I have ever felt totally unconnected to. The music, from a movie score by Michael Kamen, struck me as undeserving of being played by a corps this good. Musically, there was no flow, no sustained thematic material for an observer to hook into, just a musical version of the Blue Devils’ “stupid drum corps tricks” (sorry, “Constantly Risking Absurdity”) show of 2008. Boom! Hit! Aaaaaah! Boom! Bang bang bang! Wail! Hit. Thank you and good night. And the visual design took that into account. A million things, only ONE of which I can even remember specifically: the best moment of the show, 10 minutes in, when PR formed their chevron logo shape and stayed there for a while. Is it possible that with 2008′s “Spartacus” show, Phantom struck a vein of gold that they may never find again?

 

CADETS: Can I just say this one thing? Little Jeffrey makes me long for NPR narration.

Seriously: in this show, as in the “Find Your Happiness NPR Interview” show, you had a corps that routinely plays and marches and spins groundbreaking shows (with degrees of difficulty even higher than people think because they make it look so damn easy) … and the gimmicks so completely overshadowed the work being done that I wanted to go back and see their show again just to ignore the (choose your gimmick) interview, Little Jeffrey drum-major-wannabee, Bill-Irwin-1996-Olympics-comic-relief-DM-character, etc., and focus on the music and marching.

Cripe, the guy hefted a genuine twirling mace, and then didn’t chuck it? Come ON! [Late edit: I stand corrected.]

About five minutes in, I thought maybe the Cadets were about to launch into a ballad-esque item that would make us care about the Jeffrey character, or even like him – kind of like maybe my favorite Cadet moment ever, from their 1991 show, in which (to Copland’s “Letter From Home”) the guard plays baseball and one guard member (a character similar in appearance to Little Jeffrey) is ostracized mercilessly until finally he’s allowed to play by a merciful other guard member. I still get teary every time I even HEAR the music, because the story is told so beautifully, visually, and the music (which had nothing whatever to do with baseball) provided the kind of musical content sufficient to rip your heart out of your chest, stomp on it and put it back in. Jeffrey got his drum major uniform, and I was uncertain why.

 

Having said that…

CAROLINA CROWN are doing a Cadets show. Or at least the show the Cadets SHOULD be doing. Or maybe a Cadets show from the early 1990s? Enough about the Cadets though!, because Crown again performed a show that was entirely enjoyable, usually impressive, and executed mostly brilliantly. The vaunted brass ensemble sound was again as advertised: loud didn’t mean edgy. As an ensemble, just super, although there were occasional moments in which the high brass sections (trumpets, mellophones) committed bobbles which will of course be beaten out of them by the time Finals rolls around. I just don’t know whether they have the kind of “edgy” material that will get them the GE points to get them back to second place again, or first. And I don’t think that should be counted against them. Read on…

 

CAVALIERS: I like them. I have always admired their work, the muscular design, the risks they take, the sheer swashbuckling impression of their uniforms before they even play a note. Some of their field shows lately haven’t quite connected with me, and I have occasionally thought that might be a failing of mine. So here it is for 2010:

I never want to see that “Mad World” show again.

There were things that put me off before the pre-show was even over. [1] Yes, I get it, every corps member was supposed to display their own physical interpretation of “madness”, and this was supposed to be a disturbing show, but did that percussionist have to rock back and forth like some special needs kid, or some slow-motion Parkinson’s sufferer? I’m a teacher; I see that quite a bit; it’s out there; but they are humans, not conditions. [2] The “this is my rifle … this is my life” chant. The US Marines’ “Rifleman’s Creed”. I get it. Did that reference, and its inclusion in this show, unnecessarily draw parallels between the military and madness? Or was it supposed to, out of some odd need to protest our participation in overseas undeclared wars, and I’m only just getting that now? Or was it some oblique reference to the fact that if our kids come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, it might well be with post-traumatic stress disorders, or brain injuries, and let’s make sure we fund the VA hospitals sufficiently to deal with this? All I got was the “ooooo, lookit the disturbing!” vibe.

I also get that it was a spectacularly-performed show. (I would have admired things like the effect created by the guard dancing around to the Charlie Chaplin tune “Smile” wearing Heath Ledger-esque Joker masks, if the whole show hadn’t by that point creeped me out so badly. I was not creeped out so much by the 1989 Batman movie, and thus got a kick out of the use of “Beautiful Dreamer” in conjunction with Jack Nicholson’s Joker.) If we are judging them on how they do what they do, the Cavs deserved to knock the Bluecoats out of second place, no matter how much I’m rooting for the ‘Coats. But I don’t have to like it. And I didn’t. And the theater crowd, after having applauded at various levels for the previous 12 corps, was dead silent afterward. So I may not have been alone.

On the other hand, they DID get an emotional response out of me… so maybe they win this round after all.

[Ed. note: After the fact, I was alerted to the idea that in fact, the show was about war. I suppose if I'd known that going in, perhaps maybe I might have reacted a bit differently. So okay … I take this part back: I probably do want to see the “Mad World” show again. I will be interested to find out what I think of it.]

 

BLUECOATS have never been stronger overall. About five years ago, they got into fifth place and hinted that even better things were coming – and they’ve delivered. I never ever imagined Bluecoats as second-place material coming into quarterfinals (I mean, the Devils, Cadets and Cavaliers are in the house; not much room for sneakin’ in), but there they were, and deservingly. They do need to tone down the synth, seriously, both in volume level and in concept. I don’t think I’ve ever heard more haunting solo piano content in an evening of drum corps, even adjusting for the fact that electronics have been with us but three seasons. For my money, they can lose the plaintive synthesized cello lines for good and I’d be thrilled. There are ways of communicating that musical content with horns, really.

The show was very, very good; but something is yet missing from “Metropolis” that I can’t put my finger on, quite yet. I really hope they get it together for Finals and knock that dreadful Cavalier show back to third, or fourth.

 

And okay, I will admit that for the last few years, while the BLUE DEVILS have been beating everyone senseless, I’ve not been a fan. They hardly play jazz anymore. Heaven knows what they’re playing, half the time. I summarized their “Constantly Risking Absurdity” show as “Stupid Drum Corps Tricks” as soon as it was over, at Quarterfinals At The Movies (I have witnesses!). I mused that BD hadn’t connected with me since about 1994 (that glorious Chick Corea ballad “My Spanish Heart” ). They perform amazingly, at a ridiculously high level, and yet for years I’ve missed their 1988 and 1989 shows. Just get back and swing out!

I know: that labels me as a purist, or a stick-in-the-mud, or a traditionalist non-progressive, etc., etc. So be it: the Devils used to play big-band jazz like absolutely nobody in the activity, in fact like no one on grass in the whole world.

So this year? They play Kenton. Woo! And in spite of Steve Rondinaro’s warning that they were playing the experimental Stan Kenton from his later period – no they weren’t, really, were they? There was more than a hint of “La Suerte de los Tontos”, not just early but late, and clever references to it and other Kenton standards throughout. There was “Laura”, and breaking from the time-honored DCI tradition of playing just enough of an actual Tune to let you recognize it, but not nearly enough to let you enjoy it, the Devils played it, and played it, and played it. Woo! And there was much more (to my ear) of the classic Wayne Downey jazz brass voicings than I’ve heard lately, or maybe the material of the last few years hasn’t been the kind of material that would use those sounds to as-great advantage. But for most of that show, I was leaning forward in my seat and saying, “thank heaven for the Blue Devils.” Woo!

And then they had to spoil it with that sprinting DM at the end, didn’t they? Took all the air out of a show that should have had a movie theater on its feet, by emphasizing a strange, weird moment. (I blame the Cadets’ twilight zone show from a few years ago.)

Still, grudgingly, I’m forced to admit that they’re the best thing in drum corps right now.

But … is that the best thing for the activity? Taking, for a moment, the perspective of someone who was perhaps dragged to a show, or more specifically to THIS show, what is DCI delivering to them? The last seven corps of the night, with the exception of the Cadets and Crown, offered little other than … well, not so much “Big, Loud and Live” as “Strange, Dark and Is This What You Were Talking About When You Said ‘Like Band But Faster And Without Woodwinds’?”

POSTSCRIPT, 2/2/2011:

Michael Cesario has now been installed as the DCI Artistic Director. I listened to the two-part DCI Fieldpass podcast in which he was interviewed at some length about what changes might need to be made in judging, in show design and preparation, and what the devil a DCI Artistic Director actually does. I went away having chuckled as usual at the Michael Cesario schtick. (Two of my favorite Drum Major Academy stories have to do with the Michael Cesario schtick, but that’s for another time, if at all.) I’m very sure that I heard the DCI organization’s party line. “Y’know, what’s amazing is, everybody is on board with this!” Um… in the game of drum corps, the only thing everyone can agree on is how long the field is, from goal line to goal line – and then you ask the corps from Canada and you get a disagreement about THAT. But I came away from the podcasts with not nearly enough clue as to what was going to be changed, how it was going to be changed, or whether those changes were going to have any effect on the fact that the Devils win weird, and the only people who are going to beat them at this point will have to beat them at their own game. Aw crap.