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Jay Kennedy Steps Down


Catan

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I wonder if he might become a judge again

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Jay Kennedy was great but, I hated his Les Miz arrangements.

I sorta agree.

I mean, they were technically great! thumbup.gifI just thought he had a tough road ahead of him with people making comparisons between his arrangements and the arrangements of Cadets '89.

Had I not heard the Cadet's arrangement and the imagination of that score, I would have really enjoyed Mr. Kennedy's arrangements more. Kennedy was more straight forward, more literal with his take. So, I don't want to hate on him, but I didn't get as much out of it as other arrangements I've heard from other corps AND many marching bands over the years.

It was good, but I guess they all can't be humdingers (Joesph Heller)!

Edited by jjeffeory
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I sorta agree.

I mean, they were technically great! thumbup.gifI just thought he had a tough road ahead of him with people making comparisons between his arrangements and the arrangements of Cadets '89.

Had I not heard the Cadet's arrangement and the imagination of that score, I would have really enjoyed Mr. Kennedy's arrangements more. Kennedy was more straight forward, more literal with his take. So, I don't want to hate on him, but I didn't get as much out of it as other arrangements I've heard from other corps AND many marching bands over the years.

It was good, but I guess they all can't be humdingers (Joesph Heller)!

For perspective, in my opinion, there has been few or any recreations of music played in earlier decades that matches up well later with the earlier incantation. This is because Corps tend to do much choppier renditions in these arrangements to accomodate the full field visuals, and higher visual demands. For example, I enjoyed The Cadets 84 musical arrangements and presentation of " West Side Story " more than the later versions of WSS the Cadets did in the following decades. Additionally, I've enjoyed earlier versions of Blue Devils songs from the 70's and 80's than when they brought them back in later years. But thats understandable, as the visual demand was different. Also, I liked the '88 Boston arrangements version of Les Mis by BAC as much, if not more so, than Boston's 2011 " Les Mis. version this season. But that was a different time as music carried the day more on the score sheets back then. This also needs to be seen in the context that Boston did not do a show theme this year on " Les Mis." per se ( as 88 Boston did, followed up by '89 Cadets did ). The show theme was not " Les Mis. ". It was a theme revolving around " Revolution ", in which " Les Mis " was blended with " War of 1812 Overture" for the theme. Plus, as mentioned, Corps in the 80's had drill and visuals that made music arranging easier than here in 2011. Its a different animal altogether. That '89 Cadets show may not have beaten Boston Crusaders 2011 show under the current scoring sheets of today. ( and that 89 Cadets Corps was chock full of experienced and older talent than Boston's comparatively younger talent of this year marching World Class Division, many of them for 1st time) Kennedy did not arrange the music this year for a 1988 or 1989 visual show, nor a 1989 Cadets Corps. Had he been asked to do so, perhaps he would have done so, and probably with a different written arrangement altogether. Instead, he arranged the music score instead for a 2011 Boston Crusaders show. Their brass and GE Music scores this year matched the design, and talent level, and the visual requests of the Corps he had, imo. Thats how I see comparisons between music from the 70's 80's and reincarnations with today, anyway. Its hard to make comparisons, as the music arrangements need to match a thoroughly different score sheet and thoroughly different visual demand and drill than the Drum Corps musical compositions that were written for Corps from over 20 years ago.

Edited by BRASSO
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From 57-59/60, had Ed as bugle instructor with Braintree Braves. Then, wtih BAC from late 63, 64, 65(DM), and 66 until joining Stokie out front around June. What he might have done with todays 70 plus horn lines. I'd really would love to hear what Frank Bergdoll of SKEK fame coud do with todays brass.

I remember talking to Ed in 94 about the Blue Devels and he said to me "Do you really like that stuff ?"

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Ryan George will be taking over arranging responsibilities

I am very happy with this direction. Academy had awesome musical arrangements IMO this past season. :smile:

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wow. his work was very sophisticated this year, IMO.

any corps that gets him will be lucky.

I got the feeling from his comments in the spring that this may have been Jays last year.

He is a VP at Berklee and may want more time for other things. Just my opinion.

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