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The 1989 Thread


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My recollections of 1989:

Early season I saw a show in June at Austintown-Fitch H.S. Phantom, Cavaliers, Bluecoats, Crossmen, and others were there. All 4 of the corps mentioned had fantastic shows, but Phantom Regiment looked and sounded like they were in late-July form. They left the audience speechless. It's one of the best early-season performances I've ever seen.  Cavaliers were incredibly dirty, and many of my friends thought they would have trouble making top 6. To me, I saw something in their show in terms of design that once cleaned was going to put them in the top 5, maybe higher.  Bluecoats were kind of a BD-lite (as someone else mentioned). A smokin' entertaining show with some fantastic soloists. They had a killer percussion feature and their ballad was one of their classic moments.  Crossmen and their showmanship, killer percussion and rhythmic grooves was setting the pace for where their would go in coming years. 

 

I sadly did not see any shows again until semi-finals and finals in Kansas City. I attended a summer college orchestra festival in L.A. that summer but got back in time to join my friends on a trip to Missouri. 

 

DCI Finals: I mostly remember Phantom Regiment being the show I wanted to win. SCV did win and were truly outstanding (even minus the 2 overage kids). I'm sure it was a tough call for judges. But Cavaliers 1989 show totally blew me away. It was a clinic in design and beauty, thematic builds and visual GE that looked to be the future to me. It was stunning to see how far they had come from their early shows. Cavaliers 1989, 90, 91, and 92 are some of my favorite Cavaliers years (not to mention their shows from the early 2000s). 

The Cadets were so different yet so good. Playing a Robert Smith music book and really bringing Les Mis to the field in a unique yet very accurate way. Percussion section and guard were stunning. Two of the best units on the field that summer. I think they won guard, and not sure about percussion. I have a buddy who saw them more than I did who echoed what a few others have mentioned...that they fiddled with the ending too much. Many felt they could easily have been top 3 with a better ending, but that's how it goes sometimes. 

I often love BD, but 89 was not my favorite. Great horns and nice music charts, but visually they were behind. Nothing really grabbed me. 

Star of Indiana on the other hand just totally wowed me and it was obvious what we were in for in the early 90s. That corps could play. 

The Bluecoats got big applause and an ovation for their high intensity show, as did Madison. Madison's opener that year will kick you in the pants. Slaugher on 10th Avenue wasn't too shabby either. They still had some magnificent players after their 88 championship summer. Nice drill in the opener. 

Overall, it was a killer good finals, but my big take away was Cavaliers design and beauty and Phantom Regiment's overall masterful show that I thought should have slightly edged SCV. 

 

Edited by jwillis35
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I didn't read much of the replies, so excuse any redundancy:

The failure of the 6-panel judging system reared its disgusting, ugly head for the second (and last) year. There just wasn't a proper way to reward achievement by delineating half the captions. Under the '87 or '90 systems, I'd bet the farm that SCV would have won '88 and Phantom '89.

Judging was so iffy in 1989. There is no way in Heaven or Hell that Phantom was only 0.1 better than SCV in Brass Performance. No way. I'm a brass player, so I won't add to the comments on the 0.5 Percussion spread between them in Finals -- close in Quarters and TIED in Semis.

Cadets' brass certainly kept them out of 4th. That watered-down score was painful to hear at times.

Does anybody have the juicy truth as to why Michael Klesch left after '88? And I know that George Zingali was near the end of his illness, but he did write two stunning drills for Star ('90-'91). I wonder why '88 was his last chart for Garfield...

 

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20 minutes ago, Tad_MMA said:

Cadets' brass certainly kept them out of 4th. That watered-down score was painful to hear at times.

Does anybody have the juicy truth as to why Michael Klesch left after '88? And I know that George Zingali was near the end of his illness, but he did write two stunning drills for Star ('90-'91). I wonder why '88 was his last chart for Garfield...

 

You may be right about the Cadets brass score from 89. Not their typical style of music or demand, but I still love that show and music. It may be that Robert Smith wrote to what the corps could handle that summer, or perhaps techs watered it down a good bit to aid in better visual performance. I really have no answers for that. Great show nonetheless. They definitely had a fantastic guard and percussion section that summer. 

As for your other questions only Mr. Klesch could answer that, and the same with Zingali. What I had heard (which is likely not true) was that Mr. Klesch was working on his masters or doctoral degree at that time so they needed to bring in someone else to write the book. Klesch did return in 90, 91, and 92. Then Bocook took over in 93. Who knows? Same with Zingali. It could be as simple as Z wanting his friend Marc Sylvester to have a shot at visual design. I'm just thinking out loud here. Creative people often need time away from things or need to make shifts in order to stay sharp. I'm pretty sure Zingali was working with Star of Indiana before 1990. I think he had a hand in their initial 1985 show...maybe as consultant? 

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2 minutes ago, jwillis35 said:

You may be right about the Cadets brass score from 89. Not their typical style of music or demand, but I still love that show and music. It may be that Robert Smith wrote to what the corps could handle that summer, or perhaps techs watered it down a good bit to aid in better visual performance. I really have no answers for that. Great show nonetheless. They definitely had a fantastic guard and percussion section that summer. 

As for your other questions only Mr. Klesch could answer that, and the same with Zingali. What I had heard (which is likely not true) was that Mr. Klesch was working on his masters or doctoral degree at that time so they needed to bring in someone else to write the book. Klesch did return in 90, 91, and 92. Then Bocook took over in 93. Who knows? Same with Zingali. It could be as simple as Z wanting his friend Marc Sylvester to have a shot at visual design. I'm just thinking out loud here. Creative people often need time away from things or need to make shifts in order to stay sharp. I'm pretty sure Zingali was working with Star of Indiana before 1990. I think he had a hand in their initial 1985 show...maybe as consultant? 

I think ZIngali wrote the 1985 Star drill. It really looks like him. Of course, he wrote '86 before returning to Garfield in '87. Sylvester wrote Suncoast '86, I think. Really? Klesch went back to Cadets from 1990-1992? I'd no idea. Who wrote Star's 1993 horn book?

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41 minutes ago, Tad_MMA said:

I think ZIngali wrote the 1985 Star drill. It really looks like him. Of course, he wrote '86 before returning to Garfield in '87. Sylvester wrote Suncoast '86, I think. Really? Klesch went back to Cadets from 1990-1992? I'd no idea. Who wrote Star's 1993 horn book?

I was always under the impression that Jim Prime, Jr. wrote the brass book for Star from 1985 - 1993. Anyone know if he left before 1993?

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3 hours ago, Tad_MMA said:

I didn't read much of the replies, so excuse any redundancy:

The failure of the 6-panel judging system reared its disgusting, ugly head for the second (and last) year. There just wasn't a proper way to reward achievement by delineating half the captions. Under the '87 or '90 systems, I'd bet the farm that SCV would have won '88 and Phantom '89.

Judging was so iffy in 1989. There is no way in Heaven or Hell that Phantom was only 0.1 better than SCV in Brass Performance. No way. I'm a brass player, so I won't add to the comments on the 0.5 Percussion spread between them in Finals -- close in Quarters and TIED in Semis.

Cadets' brass certainly kept them out of 4th. That watered-down score was painful to hear at times.

Does anybody have the juicy truth as to why Michael Klesch left after '88? And I know that George Zingali was near the end of his illness, but he did write two stunning drills for Star ('90-'91). I wonder why '88 was his last chart for Garfield...

 

i'll comment on the percussion spread, having been there all 3 days

 

finals night was deserved.

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19 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

i'll comment on the percussion spread, having been there all 3 days

 

finals night was deserved.

Yep. SCV was definitely cleaner in finals. The drum scores broke down like this:

Screenshot-2020-03-30-15-59-07-1.png

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4 hours ago, Tad_MMA said:

I didn't read much of the replies, so excuse any redundancy:

The failure of the 6-panel judging system reared its disgusting, ugly head for the second (and last) year. There just wasn't a proper way to reward achievement by delineating half the captions. Under the '87 or '90 systems, I'd bet the farm that SCV would have won '88 and Phantom '89.

Judging was so iffy in 1989. There is no way in Heaven or Hell that Phantom was only 0.1 better than SCV in Brass Performance. No way. I'm a brass player, so I won't add to the comments on the 0.5 Percussion spread between them in Finals -- close in Quarters and TIED in Semis.

Cadets' brass certainly kept them out of 4th. That watered-down score was painful to hear at times.

Does anybody have the juicy truth as to why Michael Klesch left after '88? And I know that George Zingali was near the end of his illness, but he did write two stunning drills for Star ('90-'91). I wonder why '88 was his last chart for Garfield...

 

Tell me a little bit more about the six member judge panel and why it was so failurific.

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5 minutes ago, mfrontz said:

Tell me a little bit more about the six member judge panel and why it was so failurific.

there were no ensemble sheets for visual or music...just 3 15 point field captions. plus ge was 20 for brass and visual, but only 15 for percussion. 55 points for GE vs 40 for today.

file:///C:/Users/a176730/Downloads/1989recaps.htm

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2 minutes ago, mfrontz said:

Tell me a little bit more about the six member judge panel and why it was so failurific.

Performance: Brass [15] Drums [15] Visual [15]

GE:                    Brass [20] Drums [15] Visual [15]

There were 5 points allocated for Analysis within the GE numbers, but everything was consolidated to save money. How could this be a fair look at each corps?  If today’s system were used, Phantom gets a huge advantage in Music Analysis and Guard. I know: if, if, if. 

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