Souls of the Gypsy Caravan

[marshamello]

I just visited the web site for the Plymouth-Canton Marching Band when checking out the thread on minimalist shows and noticed that their 2003 show was entitled "Souls of the Gypsy Caravan" and was described as follows:

"The Souls of the Gypsy Caravan features a variety of mideast and far east music.

Travel with us on our pilgrimmage but remember that the desert can be full of surprise and excitement. Sometimes you can't believe your eyes or ears."

Sounds a bit like the Bluecoats show this past year. Bluecoats show description:

"The Bluecoats are proud to announce their 2005 Program, “Caravan.” "Caravan” will take both the Bluecoats and its audience on an incredible voyage. A “caravan” can be defined as a convoy or group procession traveling together to a common destination. The big band standard’s familiar melody, inspired by the sounds and emotions of the Mediterranean, elicits colorful images, from desert sands to spiritual ceremonies."

So all you who always point to Boston and The Cadets for borrowing a marching band show concept have yet another target!

[Matt_S]

I have recordings of both shows, and to my mind the two are very different in design and execution. I'm also sure that neither of the two were the first to use music with a Middle Eastern sound. Yeah, they might both have Caravan in their name, but this is no more big a deal to me than Crossmen and Esperanza both titling their show "Crossroads", or the fact that about five different corps used 'Colors' as a show theme in a two year period.

Now Boston using giant pictures of certain dead celebrities? That's borrowing pretty directly from the source.

[Jared_mello]

I think it's pretty safe to say that you're kind of out of line for accusing a corps for "stealing a band concept," for playing Middle Eastern and North African music, and performing a piece well-known as a jazz standard. Caravan is the name of the chart (which was found in many different contexts through the show), and was the name of the entire program. "Souls of the Gypsy Caravan" as a title is pompous and unnecessary in my opinion. Our show depicted a journey, and theirs seems to be less thematic. I'm pretty surprised that you can say that a marching band played Caravan, one of the most popular band charts (marching, jazz, etc.) in existance, and then accuse a corps that played it two years later of "borrowing a concept."

There's a big difference between Kevin Ford taking music, drill, concepts, and even the specific times they lined up in Tarpon Springs show, and putting it on the field with Boston in 2004, than a corps bringing back a song/show of theirs from 1990, and adding in some more programatic (fitting with the evolution of DCI) material to compliment the motif.

[Jared_mello]

.... the fact that about five different corps used 'Colors' as a show theme in a two year period.

You know, I knew I had heard that concept a lot, but I hadn't really thought about the number before. Wow.

[Matt_S]

Heh, well I'm exaggerating a bit, but off the top of my head I can recall BK (Primary Colors) and Crossmen (Colors) in 2003, as well as Boston following that up with "The Composition of Color" the following year. :P

[zachariaswmb]

This is pretty off topic, but:

The other day I watched this movie called Pulse:A Stomp Odyssey(hopefully you are all familiar with Stomp?). Well, in the middle of it, they had a guy doing the "ta-ka-ti-ki" thing, and it was extremely cool! But even cooler was that near the middle of the program Jersey Surf drumline comes in and totally starts layin' it down! It was sahweet.

[CrunchyTenor]

This is pretty off topic, but:

The other day I watched this movie called Pulse:A Stomp Odyssey(hopefully you are all familiar with Stomp?). Well, in the middle of it, they had a guy doing the "ta-ka-ti-ki" thing, and it was extremely cool! But even cooler was that near the middle of the program Jersey Surf drumline comes in and totally starts layin' it down! It was sahweet.

Eddie Shaughnessy, the drummer for The Tonight Show Band during the Johnny Carson era, is a huge proponent of Eastern drumming and it's application in Western music. I went to a Master Class he did on the subject in the late 70's. He speaks the rhythm and then drums it, and he does it much faster than any of the drumspeak I heard this past summer.

Garry

[bandman28]

So What......

Even if corps do duplicate titles and concepts, the drill, music, and guard work is completely different from show to show. Who really cares if a marching band did it first. Of all the nations marching bands, don't you think things get recycled every year. It really doesn't matter. It's not like the corps are buying the drill, music, and equipment from that high school and doing it exactly the same.

[HoltonH178]

Having marched Souls of the Gypsy Caravan, I don't think there was that kind of similarity. At least, certainly not to a "Tarpon Springs Crusaders" extent.

Souls of the Gypsy Caravan was a show that, like Bluecoats 2005, was focused on a journey. The entire show was made up of Kronos Quartet music, and the three movements were each entitled "Pilgrimage," "Mirage," and "Revelry," based on the music from Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur, Aaj Ki Raat, Cançao Verdes Anos, and Turceasca.

The only real connections between the Plymouth-Canton band 2003 staff and the Bluecoats were Mitch Rogers, who until 2003 served as the drill writer, and Don Hill, who has been the arranger at Plymouth for many years and served as a Bluecoats advisor last year. (Those two are some of my absolute favorite people on the Earth, BTW.) Several people have floated between the Bluecoats and Plymouth-Canton through the years, among them Lorenzo Medrano and Mike Tarr, but they hardly share a connection between high school and corps as I would compare to Carmel and the Cavaliers, Broken Arrow and Southwind, and as mentioned earlier, Tarpon Springs and the Boston Crusaders.

Was the Bluecoats 2005 show first inspired by Plymouth's 2003 production? My guess is no. I'm sure the thought probably crossed some of the staff's minds, but it probably wasn't a noteworthy influence. There is nothing substantial in terms of the charts that bears similarity. The arrangements, the source material, and the drill are all completely separate from one another. The only similarity is that PCEP 2003 and Bluecoats feature the word "Caravan" in the title and feature Middle Eastern inspired music. Heck, Bluecoats was even supposed to be about Jazzy Middle Eastern style, and Plymouth about the Gypsies. They weren't playing the same charts, or marching the same drill, or really even sharing that much conceptually.

If you want to see some real repitition of high school drill and music in drum corps shows, I'd refure you to compare Tarpon Springs 2000 and 2003 to Boston Crusaders 2002 and 2004, respectively. Also, the Bluecoats 2003 drill program had a few signature moves from Plymouth's 98-01 era, including the "beathing box" from 2000 and some neat drill used in Plymouth's 2001 program. There are examples of it, but Bluecoats 2005 isn't the best one.

Edited December 30, 2005 by HoltonH178

[ACustom19]

Who cares.