Channel One Suite

[BD2Rings]

I guess I can partially answer your question about Chuck Mangione. Yes, he had heard us play both his Legend of the One Eyed Sailor and Chase the Clouds Away. There was a PBS broadcast years later where Mangione was the "Color Commentator", and by that time he had also heard the Sacramento Freelancers perform his Bellavia. It is my belief that drum and bugle corps, in general, boosted his record sales, and his personal income.

I also heard many years ago, within the Blue Devils organization, that Chuck Mangione had offered to arrange a composition just for us. I sure hope this was true and not just a rumor, but the fact that I question it now, all these years later, may leave some room for others to question too. I have a strong feeling this is true, but don't make any large bets on it.

[O.P.]

I feel the need to share a true story about 1976.

Back in the day, there was much less cross country activity to march in certain corps. It did exist, but not at the magnitude of today. The Blue Devils were largely a local corps. We had a couple of sopranos from Ohio, a bari from Wyoming, another from Kansas, another from Santa Clara (which is in our own backyard), and a few (including Bonnie Ott) came from the Stockton Commodores or smaller corps in the rather immediate area. Only a handful came from outside an hours drive.

About a 2-3 weeks after drum corps season ended that year, there was a concert at the Concord Pavilion. The concert was of Buddy Rich and his big band along with Mel Torme. The Blue Devils were slated as Buddy Rich's warm up gig.

I mentioned above the local nature of the Blue Devils so it would be clear that even though the marching season was over, the corps was largely intact. I believe we had a member turnout for this concert of better than 95%.

Now I have no clue if Buddy Rich had any idea of what a drum and bugle corps was, and he probably had even less of an idea who the Blue Devils were. So it may be safe to assume that he had no clue about the drum corps activity outside of some 'marching band' perspective. You corps people should well know what I mean here.

The Blue Devils could not possibly have set up on that stage. It is a fairly large circular stage, large enough to hold a corp performing a stand still, but all of Buddy Rich's big band equipment was already set. Due to the nature of the performance and structure of the seating and stage, the seats on the sides of the big band were not sold. All ticket holders sat out in front of the band. Therefore, the Blue Devils occupied the empty seats on the viewing left of the stage.

Now what would you guess we started to play? If you know our book from '76, you probably would guess Channel One Suite, and you would be correct. We started playing and the stage itself was empty. Only a few phrases into the chart, Buddy Rich himself walked out on stage. Now let your imaginations run wild as to what he could possibly be thinking. Did he know drum corps? Did he know of the Blue Devils? Who the hell is playing my music?

As I said the stage was a circle, and the pavilion itself is a large bowl. The stage is sunken compared to most of the circlular seating around it. There is a short wall of maybe 2 feet maximum that runs around the stage, that one can easily step over, and that is exactly what Buddy Rich did. He stood front and center in front of our snare line (The Wall) for the remainder of the chart. Unfortunately, I did not have a good view of Mr. Rich during this period, as there were too many shakos and plumes in my line of sight. When we finished the chart, the audience was strangely quiet, and it was not due to lack of numbers. I can only assume it was due to them knowing that Buddy Rich was front and center, and that we had just finished playing his chart. Maybe they were waiting for his response. In any case, Buddy Rich turned toward the crowd, and the stage, raised a fist over his head, and proclaimed loud enough for the entire pavilion to hear "Right on drummers!". It was then that we received the response from the audience.

The Blue Devils drum line had just been complimented by Buddy Rich, after we played his chart. The drum book was a very close clone of Buddy's work, and it appeared what we did pleased him. For those of you that watched the ESPN2 broadcast, you saw the clip about the family with the full 50 years of corps activity. Well the father, Rick, was the individual responsible for writing and teaching that drum book. Buddy Rich applauded his efforts back then, and he is still going at it, as are his sons. I think it was well deserved that they were on the broadcast.

As for which performance was best, I'll still leave that up to you guys. You now know which I felt was best, and you now know why.

True story.

The best story I have ever heard about drum corps. That is what legends are made of. Kudos to Rick Odello (who for some ungodly reason has been left out of the DCI Hall of Fame). Come one DC Communnity we need to do so mething about that!

[Jim Alberty]

I guess I can partially answer your question about Chuck Mangione. Yes, he had heard us play both his Legend of the One Eyed Sailor and Chase the Clouds Away. There was a PBS broadcast years later where Mangione was the "Color Commentator", and by that time he had also heard the Sacramento Freelancers perform his Bellavia. It is my belief that drum and bugle corps, in general, boosted his record sales, and his personal income.

I also heard many years ago, within the Blue Devils organization, that Chuck Mangione had offered to arrange a composition just for us. I sure hope this was true and not just a rumor, but the fact that I question it now, all these years later, may leave some room for others to question too. I have a strong feeling this is true, but don't make any large bets on it.

Well, since the name came up....I marched BD in 77 as a rookout (I think I owe BD2Rings a bunch of beers for his family's hospitality) - in 83 I came back as equipment manager, also the year that Mangione was color commentator (along with Chita Rivera, I think it was...).

I took the plane from Miami to Boston on my way to Maine, my new home...and there in the flight lounge was Chuck Mangione - I think he was teaching at the Berklee school at the time.

So, with nothing better to do I wallked over, introduced myself and talked to him about his music and the Blue Devils - very personable guy and he really, reallly liked the Blue Devils and attributed a lot of the success of his recordings to the fact the BD had played "One Eyed Sailor" and band directors across the country had rushed to their local stores to rip the arrangement off - also "Chase the Clouds Away" and "Bellavia" (thank you Freelancers).

This was long before the Simpsons discovered "Feels So Good".

He was nice enough to give me a "Feels So Good" postcard, autographed "To Jim - thanks to you and the Blue Devils too".

If memory serves me right I dontated it to Blue Devils Hall a few years later. It may still be there.

Strange how one leads to another, isn't it? Drum corps to popular music back to drum corps....of course, not just BD, either.

regards - Jim

Edited September 8, 2007 by Jim Alberty

[BD2Rings]

Thanks Jim. I'll be looking for those brews in Indianapolis sometime over the next decade.

For the rest of you, look at the signatures for both Jim and I.

[MJN]

For me, 1986

[MJN]

For the rest of you, look at the signatures for both Jim and I.

Maybe I missed something in these 3 pages, but why should "the rest of us" look at your signatures?

Just curious.

[BD2Rings]

Uh, we marched together in '77 and both played lead baritone perhaps?

[Storkysr]

De La Salle 1974

[MJN]

Uh, we marched together in '77 and both played lead baritone perhaps?

That's great -- but why does that mean "the rest of us" need to look at your signatures?