His name was Clark, and he wanted more than anything else to play a horn and make sounds like the ones he was hearing on the radio every time he walked home from school past the barber shop, where the men laughed, smoked and told stories about “The Great War”.
-being a short anthropology of the bugle, more or less- The following is a Fractured Fairy Tale, though many of the details are absolutely true. As for the rest… As dawn broke in a boreal woods long, long ago, a drowsy Neanderthal trudged out of the brush and promptly tripped over an old Triceratops skull. […]
On a beautiful summer day 69 years ago, a young Joe Montanaro took some of his buddies for a short boat cruise. They bobbed in a channel for a time and then headed straight for the opposite shore. When they crested the breakers there was much shouting and anticipation, but this was no ordinary beach […]
My friend Curt Moore, drummer with the extraordinary Latin/Jazz group Soul Sauce, was in an earlier life the lead stick in the Santa Clara line of the early’70s and subsequently a top-gun instructor and DCI adjudicator. He has played with Grammy nominees, written books, created videos and conducted clinics and seminars in the US and […]
Now that I think about it, the whole episode unfolds like a slick Hollywood script, except it really happened. If you doubt it, just ask the others. They were there, too. It’s the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, that most excellent event that stretches summer by one more glorious day. This time holds special meaning […]
Napoleon is probably most responsible for the popularity of combining music and marching in modern times. While he was out conquering the world, he stumbled upon a Turkish “Janissary” band with cornettos, shawms, cymbals, and a thing called a “Jingling Johnny” that resembled a hi hat on a broom stick. He proceeded to buy one, […]
A very wise friend of mine named Jim Elvord once stood up at a corps staff meeting of a top national contender and asked the following: Who are we? Where are we? Where do we want to go? How are we going to get there? Everybody wanted to skip right to number 4. That would […]
One popular scientific theory holds that the universe continues expanding, a result of the incredible force generated by the Big Bang. There seems to be a good deal of evidence for this view. Whether this will go on forever is debatable, and even Einstein struggled with this problem. After all, why wouldn’t the collective mass […]
A hush falls over the audience as the ensemble turns backfield and shapes the hauntingly melodious beginning strain of a deeply moving ballad. The pit percussionists layer tasteful textures onto the rich brass sound, the timpanist applying a perfectly balanced and feather-light touch to a roll even as a gentle wind chime floats above it […]
A few days ago, I held in my hands a valveless trumpet upon which ringing fanfares were once sounded in the Royal Court of His Majesty, James II of England. This rarest of horns may also have served to enliven Shakespearian dramas and comedies of the period. Crafted of copper and brass in London by […]
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