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The history of the Westshoremen


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I turned 24 that summer. My last year marching.

I had been kicking around the idea of "retiring" for months... "Maybe I'll call it a day after this season, maybe I'll come back... I'll see how things go"...

Then we had a two-show weekend, in late July I believe it was. Carisle, PA on Saturday, Derby, CT on Sunday afternoon. :blink:

Now... there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between Carlisle and Derby. They are a million miles from each other. LOL.

And the day of the Derby show... it was blazing hot that day.

I and a buddy from Sun drove to the show (this after taking the bus from Long Island for the relatively long trip to Carlisle, getting off the bus "back home" on Long Island and driving back to NJ for a few hours' sleep).... and I don't think I had ever been, up to that point in my life, as physically and mentally drained as I was on that Sunday.

And topping off the day... on a horrible note... was the death of John Collum, who was chief judge at the show.

John and his girlfriend Jackie were great folks and friends to a number of us, myself included. He had been battling cancer... and that day he collapsed, literally right in front of us, during our performance. He was pronounced dead a short time later. Needless to say, that kinda threw me and others off our game that day.

I decided right then and there, after our performance, that 1982 would be my last season marching, no matter what happened the rest of the summer. I was done, done, done.

That was my 1983 'thing' Was at the point where I felt like I have done enough, and thought it would be good to take a year or so off, try to get some other interests moving, etc. When the 1984 debacle happened, and "Larry sold the corps", I went back to be a warm body and show a "number" at rehearsals. I figured that once I was sure that things were going to move forward, I'd go back into retirement, but unfortunately that never happened, so I stuck it out until June when they decided that we were going parade only/semi-inactive for the season....I had the bug, didn't want to do parades so I went to Reading to fill a hole and ended up staying for 1985...then I did the "one year" thing in '88 to help THEM keep it together.

Never looked back, in fact, I can count the number of shows I've attended over that period of time on one hand!

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Happened to notice the brithdays and saw a user id of "manson". Checked the profile and yep our guy.

Too bad he hasn't been on in 5 years......

Yeah, he stopped in, talked for a day or two, then was gone....Last I SAW him was 1985 at DCA Finals... we walked off the field, put our drums away, and that was it. Was surprised when he showed up here...I figured he'd show up on the Facebook sooner or later.

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I always thought that the Jonny Quest theme would make a great drum corps tune! Watching that show probably helped me gain my love for that big brassy sound! :devil:

Haddon Heights did it as an opener waaaay back. Their HS Marching band was in effect a marching Jazz ensemble, and they were quite, quite good. It's a grade 5 chart- not exactly easy.

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Haddon Heights did it as an opener waaaay back. Their HS Marching band was in effect a marching Jazz ensemble, and they were quite, quite good. It's a grade 5 chart- not exactly easy.

No, that tune is WICKED!!! All over the place. I'd be willing to bet most college jazz ensembles would have a tough time at it.

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No, that tune is WICKED!!! All over the place. I'd be willing to bet most college jazz ensembles would have a tough time at it.

I got a quick look at the lead sheet/condensed score- Key of E Minor, bad news to start with, and the bone work slammin' between 2nd and 4th position at the beginning's a bit of a zoo unless you have your slide discipline down and THINK. And the drums, you need someone jammin' away on toms constantly. Calling Hair Bear!!!!! :worthy:

Some guy somehow managaed to create a buttload of music from the series and make several for lack of better words, suites of it on YT. Very interesting.

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Lately, I've been listening to of all things, the Hoyt Curtin compositions for Jonny Quest. Hoping to draw Baldy out on this one with all the nasty Bone work and arm flailing. The main theme and exit theme as well as most of the incidental stuff were basically a jazz ensemble with a buttload of trombones, the soloist was Frank Rosolino, the stuff is kickin' for music written for a kid's show. One of the reasons I loved the show as a kid myself.

A guy put together a lot of sound tracks on YT, you can do the searches on your own hint hint... and really, there's a mini-corps show in there if you had the right madmen. :satisfied:

W, lots of great playing (and arm flailing) going on in Hoyt's charts. :thumbup:

Many of the trombonists involved in the soundtrack for Jonny Quest were LA "first call" players. Top of the line players. I got a chance to talk with Rosolino MANY years ago at an International Trombone Association workshop at Belmont College in Nashville. He spoke about doing the gig to lay down the Curtin soundtracks for Jonny Quest. "A good time" I believe were his exact words.

Frank was generally a man of few words, but LOTS of notes. A great player.

If you were to "drop by" the LA musicians union hall on a Saturday morning say around 10am, you would find several of the players on the soundtrack still playing in a group called Bones West. This is a trombone only jazz ensemble originally started by George Roberts (Mr Bass Trombone). You might know him better as the sound of the attacking great white shark in the movie "JAWS".

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W, lots of great playing (and arm flailing) going on in Hoyt's charts. :thumbup:

Many of the trombonists involved in the soundtrack for Jonny Quest were LA "first call" players. Top of the line players. I got a chance to talk with Rosolino MANY years ago at an International Trombone Association workshop at Belmont College in Nashville. He spoke about doing the gig to lay down the Curtin soundtracks for Jonny Quest. "A good time" I believe were his exact words.

Frank was generally a man of few words, but LOTS of notes. A great player.

If you were to "drop by" the LA musicians union hall on a Saturday morning say around 10am, you would find several of the players on the soundtrack still playing in a group called Bones West. This is a trombone only jazz ensemble originally started by George Roberts (Mr Bass Trombone). You might know him better as the sound of the attacking great white shark in the movie "JAWS".

I know George when he played with the first iteration of the Mike Vax Kenton Alumni- have the first Vax CD where he did a great solo feature- also from his feature in "This is an Orchestra!" by Kenton- I was talking to a guy at work who's teaching himself jazz trombone and asking for pointers- I mentioned George to him as someome he should listen to- I think the guy had a 3+ octave range on the Bass.

My bone is at my parent's. I was good enough to cover for school musicals BITD, if I had the cash, I'd get a Superbone- and speaking of THAT---

Someone found live footage of Ellis' Montreux festival performance and put up "Sporting Dance" with the solo dogfight between Ellis and Kaplan. The band tears and nearly falls apart near the end of the solo when Ellis tries to push the tempo with the drummer, but the whole thing's just electric. Crazy stuff in 15/8. :satisfied:

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Just read the mess that is Gades thread.

Needless to say, 1980 Pibadee Massatwo*hits has come to mind. They told us how Bayonne messed up the place before we went there.... As for what happened with Westshore at Pibadee, my sworn statement to quote the famous race car driver and founder of the Polish-American Racing team Oscar Kovalevski in regards to the infamous "bog" incidents at Watkins Glen where buses and several vehicles were burned, is.... "NOT GUILTY!" :cool:

I guess as I have said time and again.... things are different nowadays. And from the looks of it, the Gades management is in full tilt Fustercluck mode to boot given who's been making the posts and from what I know of some of those folks..... I am not suprised. Seems they must have been the same communications people for Penn State when the Sandusky scandal broke. :tongue:

I wonder how Larry would have solved this. I'd dare say there wouldn't have been a 1 year suspension of the corps, but I have a feeling some people in the corps would have been swinging like Pinatas from trees for the rest of us to beat with sticks until the candy came out. :thumbup:

I dunno. I have a feeling most DCA corps BITD were all crazy SOBs for the most part..... :satisfied:

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