Lancerlady Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 Unquestionable. Many people are responsible for individual corps development (i.e, Directors such as Jones, Royer, Bonfiglio, Seawright, etc) and show designs (Pace, Zingali, Brubaker, Emmons, Moxley, etc) that their students learned from and improved or advanced, but Don Angelica was the one who took DCI and oversaw the development and freedon of perfromance from a military based/influenced activity, and made it a broadway, entertainment performance based activity. As chief judge coupled with his natural personality as mentor, he brought to the activity a value system that lent itself to progress and advancement. He influenced which instructors could be more effective with a corps and facilitated these changes to happen; he provided suggestions and guidance on show development with design staffs during the season to help them improve; he constantly monitored his judging community on their perspectives and choices to ensure their artistic evaluatiuon skills were properly focused and tuned; he encoraged moving away from "ticks" and lobbied the dc community to vote the old system out by encouraging key people to speak up in the judging and teaching communities; moreover, he encourage a constant dialogue between the two during the off season to ensure it all happened outside of the competitive season.Critics may site his dictatorial nature and approach and there is enough evidence to suggest it to be true. But political scientists will always tell you the best type of leadership is a benevolent and just dictator, which Don Angelica was. However, the problem with this is that when they depart, they are impossible to replace and so it is a risky venture, because the one who replaces is usually incapable of such benevolence and wisdom. And so we get a committee. Which is what has run DCI since his passing. Still the activity yearns for someone like that today. And there are people who do their best to lead in his example , such as Gibbs and Hopkins to name but two, but it is difficult to lead an activity when you are competing as well, and so that vision never really is provided. But vision the activity needs and it needs to come not from the corps per se (they should produce the product) but from the judges who encourage these paradigm shifts. The 70's, under Angelica's guidance saw Pace's scatter drills of the 75 Lancers, the flow design perfection of Moxley's 76-82 Blue Devils, and Emmon's brillant asymmetry of the 80 Vanguard. Angelica encourged designers to be different and then demanded that they be great. No one else has done that for drum corps. I couldn't agree with you more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomnoise Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 What O.P. said (so eloquently) is spot on. As for the family tree, I would humbly suggest:Dr. Bernard Baggs (Donald's teacher at Bergenfield HS.) Donald Angelica (Garfield, Cabs bugler, then arranger, B-field Band director, DCI and WGI chief judge...) mentor to: Jim Jones Gail Royer Pete Emmons Mike Moxley Fred Sanford Shirlee Whitcomb Shirley Stratton Mel Stratton Wayne Downey Ralph Pace O.P. George Zingali Marc Sylvester Steve Brubaker Scott Stewart...and on and on... Influential? Q.E.D., as they say in Geometry. ..and Frank 'Ironlips" Dorritie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommytimp Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 Emmon's brillant asymmetry of the 80 Vanguard. It's a great, great drill, but less than half of it was asymmetrical. But it is brilliant. Topic? Word. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle z Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 The roto-tom player from '75 Muchachos that is the sourch of a DCP thread about once every six months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommytimp Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 The roto-tom player from '75 Muchachos that is the sourch of a DCP thread about once every six months. By the way, what happened to the Muchachos in 75? I understand they were pretty good. Did they decide to just stay home or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayfallon Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Don Angelica. However, having said that - a list like this one that doesn't include Dennis Delucia seems, well, incomplete. I think that many of you are more familiar with Dennis as a talking head on the broadcast than as one of the all-time most influential and pivotal percussion writers and teachers - in the same league as any writer or teacher mentioned here. And also... pivotal in the artistic and aesthetic directions of such trailblazers as Muchachos, Bridgemen, Star of Indiana - the great Crossmen shows that he put together for the Crossmen in the early 90s. for me, although I've been influenced by a whole lot of people including John Sasso and Frank Dorritie and others, one that I feel a deep debt to is Jim Prime Sr. - not the fabulous arranger for Star and so many others, but his dad, who was a giant as a music judge during the '70s, and personally explained so many of the intricacies of the activity to me while out on tour. He was brilliant, eloquent, insightful, and a perfectly delightful human being. I think he made me better at everything I've attempted to do since I knew him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle z Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 By the way, what happened to the Muchachos in 75? I understand they were pretty good. Did they decide to just stay home or something? Yeah, it's been a couple of months at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laurasop Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Robert W. Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevlar496 Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Marty Hurley John Brazalle Jim Wren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puppet Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Four words. Photo by Moe Knox. After that: Video Tape followed by computers. Puppet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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