Jim White

Since his days with the Senior AppleKnockers, us upstaters have always known the Hall of Famer simply as "Ace".........

It's only been there for about 30 years......used to be where the South Avenue Parking garage is now.....they got the best hot sauce it town.......

If you can drive 175 miles in "about an hour", you should be in NASCAR and not drum corps......

Nick was the musical director and arranger for the Geneva Appleknockers Senior Corps in the late 1950's and 60's. Nicholas V. D'Angelo Penfield: April 19, 2010, Age 80. He was born in Erie, PA and was a veteran of the Korean War as a conductor of the Air Force Band. Nick was a Professor of Music at Hobart and William Smith College for 56 years. He studied under various composition teachers including Bernard Rogers, Luigi Dallapiccola, Paul Hindemith & Earl George. His compositions made him the recipient of numerous prizes, honors and grants including a 1985 Pulitzer Prize nomination in music, Hobart and William Smith College's Faculty Award for Distinguished Research and Scholarship for his "considerable distinction as a versatile American composer", First Prize at the New American Music Festival, the National Endowment of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and numerous commissions; most notably a commission from the Society for New Music. His music is recorded on Roulette, KLP, Century and Spectrum and has been performed throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, England, France and Italy. He is predeceased by his parents,. Polidoro & Josephine; his brother, Peter Libra & sister, Mary A. Lang. He is survived by his wife, Eva D'Angelo; his children, Paul (Jenna), Ronald (Amy) D'Angelo & Barbara (Patrick) Riley; his grandchildren, Johnna, Caitlin, Patrick, Michael Riley, Brittani & Nicholas D'Angelo, Clair Donovan, and Samson Auer; many nieces and nephews. Calling Thursday 2-4, 7-9 PM at Falvo Funeral Home, 1295 NINE MILE POINT ROAD, WEBSTER (Rte 250) where Funeral Services will be held Friday at 11 AM. In lieu if flowers, contributions may be made to Rochester Musicians Assn., Local 66, 875 Main St. East, Rochester, NY 14605 or the American Diabetes Association ., 160 Allens Creek Rd., Rochester, NY 14618. Interment, private. FalvoFuneralHome.com logo

In the late 50's/early 60's, Don Phipps of the Geneva Appleknockers Senior Corp routinely played an upright string bass during their Gershwin Medley in Winter stage concerts. He was also a hell of a French horn player.

Speaking of contra bass bugles, Jack Bullock of the Geneva Appleknockers is credited with creating the first one in the mid-50's. Here is his write-up from the Drum Corps Hall of Fame..... INDUCTED 1981 JACK BULLOCK Jack Bullock is known for his innovations in bugle instruction and arranging, mainly with the Geneva Appleknockers in upstate New York. In the 1950s, he was one of the first to create jazz-styled horn arrangements. He also made performing a year-round activity, scheduling sit-down stage concerts during the winter months. For many winters, the Appleknockers attracted more members for the winter schedule of performances than for summer parades and field shows. He was instrumental in working with Whaley Royce and Co. manufacturers of Toronto, Canada in introducing the first contra-bass bugle, almost 10 years before the over-the-shoulder model became common. The Whaley Royce design produced the proper sound, but the horn was the conventional bugle shape. The weight of the instrument made it too heavy and cumbersome to manage while marching, and it was used only briefly by the Appleknockers. He had joined the Geneva Appleknockers senior drum and bugle corps as a bugler in the spring of 1948. In 1951, he was drafted into the United States Army, serving for two years. He rejoined the Appleknockers, serving as a bugler, arranger and instructor intermittently through the 1960s. When the Appleknockers ceased operations, he became arranger and instructor for a number of corps in western New York, including Geneva Junior Appleknockers, Auburn Purple Lancers and Rochester Crusaders. He was a well-known arranger and instrumental clinician with Warner Bros. Music, in Miami, FL for many years following his drum corps career

I've got a Geneva Appleknockers album "Jazz on the Spot" which features Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" and "Crazy Rhythm" which was their interpretation of "I Got Rhythm and Fascinatin Rhythm". The album is dated 1963 and features soloists Ken "Ace" Petersen on Soprano and Don Phipps on French Horn and upright String Bass (yes, that is not a typo). The Appleknockers were innovators who also did tunes by Ellington and Offenbach. Also on the album were killer arrangements of "Melancholy Rhapsody", "Jezebel", and their closing theme song "Apple Blossom Time". All great arrangments by Jack Bullock.

Dick Pronti started out in Drum Corps as a horn player for the 1958 Shortsville Shamrocks parade corps and later became the Drum Major. When the Shamrocks started field competitions in 1963, Dick wrote the drill routine and served as instructor and stayed with the corps thru the 1967 season. He also marched with the senior Appleknockers in the late 50's/early 60's among other activities......

I remember the Senior Appleknockers doing a killer arrangement of Melancoly Rhapsody with Ace Peterson. I think it was arrranged by Jack Bullock. The Shortsville Shamrocks did a Jack Bullock arrangement of Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll" featuring a sextet doing the bridge. Always loved that tune.

The Shortsville Shamrocks have a new group page on FACEBOOK. Please drop by and browse the site. The address is: http://zh-hk.facebook.com/pages/Shortsvill...ks/219302839207

The other player in the duet was Don "Rips" Phipps who played the French Horn (not a soprano duet) and I agree it was fabulous. I knew Donny since he was a lifelong resident of Shortsville, NY and the Corps director for the Shortsville Shamrocks for several years. Donny was also a soloist on the upright string bass for the Appleknockers during their winter sitdown concerts which were quite innovative for the late 1950's/early 60's. If you listen closely to "Jezebel", it's Donny wailing on the French Horn with his famous rips. I am also a big fan of Kenny "Ace" Petersen and his innovative solo work. He is absolutely fabulous on "Melancoly Rhapsody" from the movie Young Man with a Horn for the Appleknockers circa 1960/61. It's a compilicated piece for a trumpet but he did it with a one valve/rotary bugle. His solo fanfare to start their off-the-line piece "Strike Up the Band" is also great. Ace is still active today with several corps and is in his early 80's. He is always at the DCA I&E's (started by Dick Pronti - another Shamrock alumni) playing with the 3 tenors, Prime Time Brass, and the Ghost Riders. He also marches with Mighty St. Joe's alumni. I am surprised no one else brought up his name earlier in this topic.

So Dickie, are you saying that Valentine Anzalone talked you into playing a coronet too? Me too. I hated that #### coronet so much that I switched to a baritone my freshmen year and guess who was the senior baritone player in the band that year? None other that the current govenor of Tennessee - Phil Brendesen. Good ole Red Jacket Central..........

I was in Auburn, NY on Sunday at a car show on the shores of Owasco Lake when I heard a Drum Corps practicing in the distance. I wandered over to see what was going on and to my surprise, it was the Auburn Purple Lancers. I hadn't heard of them since the late 70's when they were a pretty big deal in the DCI circuit. I talked to a guy associated with the corps and found out that they are currently an all-age parade corps for the time being with members ranging from 12 to 50+. In practice, they had 14-15 horns and a 9-10 member drumline. The hornline sounded good and the drumline was crisp. Good to see an old corps on the comeback trail.

You forgot the Dynamic Duo......the one-year collaberation of the Shortsville Shamrocks and Auburn Purple Lancers in 1967.

As a member of the Shortsville (NY) Shamrocks in the late 50's-early sixties, I remember competing against an all-girl junior corps from Rochester, NY called the Alpine Girls. I don't know much about their history but I believe they were gone by the mid-60's. They were a small but spirited corps.

Yeah Dickie, it's me....the walkin one and only....still in Shortsville...saw you at the I&E last fall but you looked busy.....great shows... I remember that contra....didn't a guy named Geordy Lowrey also play it? Biggest friggin bugle I ever saw...I wonder where it is now? Hell of a collector piece. Ran into Bill Morgan...he quit the Savannah Cellar Savers and joined St. Joes Alumni last year...his facebook picture is him in uniform...looks like the old Shamrocks blouses.....was thinkin about the old parade corp in the 50's and can only remember 2 tunes that we played - Tootsie and Irish Eyes....there must have been more but my mind is a blank...do you remember any more? As for Ace Peterson, the best solo I remember from him was Melancoly (sp) Rhapsody from the movie Young Man with a Horn...he was friggin unbelievable on that tune...Jack Bullock could write some great charts and Donny was a wild man on Jezebel... I aged out of the Shamrocks at the end of the 1966 season and was in college when the Dynamic Duo debuted at RJCS...I heard they ripped the joint and am sorry I missed it...I never made it to a show the summer of 67 so I never saw them on the field.....I've only ever seen one score posted for the Duo so I don't know how many shows they made it into that year....

As a lifelong resident of Shortsville, NY, I remember Don Phipps starting when I was a little kid in the 50's hearing him practice his French Horn on his back porch and then seeing him perform with the Appleknockers Senior Corps both in the summer and as part of their winter concert tours. Donny not only solo'd on the French Horn (great rips in Jezebel which in my opinion made that song memorable) but he also played the string bass on several songs in the winter concerts. I also remember Kenny "Ace" Petersen with the Appleknockers as one of the greatest horn players I ever heard anywhere. Later after the Sr. Appleknockers folded, Donny joined his hometown Shortsville Shamrocks as a Corp Director and horn instructor. I was a member of the Shamrocks from 1958 when they were a parade corps for the Citizens Hose Company through 1967 when we were a field corps (63-68) and member of the NY-Penn Circuit. I quit the year we merged with the Purple Lancers to become the Dynamic Duo which ended the corps existence. Anyways, Donny was a true Drum Corps professional and a great but somewhat quirky guy that also worked with my father at the Papec Machine Company in Shortsville. Donny's connections in Drum Corp got us into some great shows for a hick town corps including an Evening with the Corps concert at Symphony Hall in Jersey City (Carnegie Hall was being renovated that year). The Shamrocks also had the Drum Corp Hall of Famer Jack Bullock (and born in Shortsville) writing our music and occasionally instructing along with DC Hall of Famer Dick Pronti as our original Drum Major and drill instructor as well as the writer of the field routines. I retired from performing but still make several shows each year, especially the DCA finals in Rochester.