From: dkinney@chilidog.bothell.sgi.com (Dan Kinney)
Subject: Re: Madison Review, Part II
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:21:27 GMT

I thought I would throw in my two cents.  I've marched and taught, but not too much lately.  In fact, I didn't even see a show during last year.  I did see some on the Northwest swing as well as the PBS broadcast.


In article <1992Aug18.023733.10302@beaver.cs.washington.edu>, dci@cs.washington.edu (Donald Chinn) writes:


|> <...blah, blah, blah...> skipping the corps I haven't seen enough to form even a partial opinion...


|> PHANTOM REGIMENT (March Slav, 1812 Overture, and Symphonies 4 and 6,
|> all by Tchaikovsky) -- Not having seen Phantom perform 1812 ever, I
|> was eagerly awaiting the show.  

I was able to see them on tour playing 1812 (last version) many times when I marched.  I liked it better last time, but it might have been the 4" mono speaker for my TV.  I thought that this year's version didn't get fully developed and lack the raw energy of the previous version.  Although I am glad to see people have grown up and don't throw rolls of toliet paper after their show, I like the firework-streamers better than this year's climax.  Kinda flat.

Parting shot... lose the guard uniforms.


|> MADISON SCOUTS (music from City of Angels: Theme and Prologue, LA
|> Blues, You Gotta Look Out for Yourself, With Every Breath I Take,
|> Funny) --  Yowsers!  Crowd-pleasing, entertaining, jazzy, etc.  A
|> better hornline sound and an expanded version of Funny made this show
|> very entertaining.
...
|> I didn't detect much new in the way of drill, but this show was wildly
|> entertaining (as was last year's).  The horn line was a little rough
|> at times.

See comments to come about Cavalier's drill.

|> 
|> The guard seemed to be rather incredible, with rifle throw after rifle
|> throw.

Yep!  I like their guard too.

Overall, I thought there show was very good.   Maybe not great, but then I only saw them for the first time on the broadcast.  I think a lot of the Scout's appeal is in the live presentation.  I was surprised that the crowd didn't seem to be as into their show as with other corps (like Cavies).


|> 
|> BLUE DEVILS (Someone's There, Cuban Fire Suite (El Congo Valiente,
|> Fuego Cubano, La Suerte de Los Tontos), When a Man Loves a Woman) -- A
|> little disappointing after hearing their horn line up close in July.
|> They (the brass) seemed a bit off, and they didn't seem to generate
|> much volume.
|> 
...

|> 
|> The color guard was good (I believe they won High Auxiliary).
|> 
|> People have complained about their drill, but I think their drill is
|> not much different (from a difficulty point of view) from previous
|> years.  This might not say much, but I am wondering why people seem to
|> be complaining extra hard this year.  I guess 1989 was the year they
|> had an interesting drill.
|> 
|> But to me, the Blue Devils have never been about drill.  They always
|> seemed to be about execution.  Look back at the last several years,
|> and the thing that sticks out is a solid jazz repertoire (except Tommy
|> in 1990) and playing that show really well.

To me, their drill seemed pretty fractured.  But then again, I like connected.  The way to look at their drill is like blocking (as in stage productions).  The purpose of their drill was to have the right sounds in the right place for the presentation.  This caused the transistions to be choppy (here's what I mean about being fractured), but the resulting presentation was good.

|> 
|> They were off in Finals (and they seemed off in Semis to).  Attacks
|> were not entirely together and they didn't fill the stadium that much
|> (compared to other corps). Might this be the consequence of arranging
|> too much for the upper voices?

Isolated comment... the contra lick at the top of La Suerte de Los Tontos was REALLY weak.  If you're going to expose yourself like that, you'd better nail it.  (To give them credit, the tempo was cranked, but...)

|> Quick opinions: the dice are ok in my book, they changed some parts of
|> the music (the end of El Congo Valiente, or is it the beginning of
|> Fuego Cubano?), I'm neutral about the "ripping off of the jackets and
|> shirts" (although I must admit that it does play to the theme).

Yeah, but you've got to have it to flaunt it.  Some of those horn players ain't got it.

I really like the beginning of the closer... the different licks presented with different styles of dance.  Also, I think that the dancing was excellent, raw, and EXACTLY what the tribal percussion was portraying.  It wasn't raunchy - just powerful.  Sometimes you just have to throw the nonfat plain yogurt out and dig into a tall banana split!  I really liked the different, personal dance tights the guard had on.  It allowed them to have their personality be represented without taking away from the whole.




|> STAR OF INDIANA (Star Spangled Overture (Gould), Chester Overture
|> (Schumann), Amber Waves (Gould), and Flag of Stars (Gordon Jacob)) --
|> An intricate and difficult show.  The variations on the American
|> themes seems to me to be intriguing.  Not much to say except that they
|> performed the show really well.
|> 
|> I thought they might have overdone the American images just a bit, but
|> the drill moves (the star, the other star, the flag, spelling out USA)
|> came out of nowhere.
|> 
|> Being an American, I got kind of tired of the theme after a while, but
|> the execution was great.

I think a lot of people (that have been flaming these guys) haven't listened to the music very closely.  Although these are melodies that have been hammered into our ears since birth, the treatment provided by Gould/Prime are incredible.

As far as the "USA" and star sets, I think they were used in good taste and with good effect.  I especially liked the airbrused props.  The one that I liked the most on TV was were the movement in front was being mirrored by people in back.  The huge prop at the end was a bit much.  Instead of feeling all mushy about being an American, I was calculating the cost of producing such a prop.  Not a great last impression!


|> CADETS OF BERGEN COUNTY (To Tame the Perilous Skies (Holsinger)) -- A
|> great show, from the music book to the visual program.  There are so
|> many ways that the show expresses flight that I probably missed a lot.
|> 
|> Here are the few I caught: jumpsuits for the guard, the rotating plane
|> drill form, the flags (eagle, biplane, sky), the "flying" guard (with
|> the assistance of other guard members).

I liked the flying too.  It came over really well on TV... but did it work from section ZZ, triple nosebleed?

|> 
|> The music is great, the horn line was great, the color guard was
|> great.  There were a few imprecise things going on in the horn line,
|> but overall they were much improved over last year's version.  I
|> especially liked their middle voices.  Plus, there were all sorts of
|> neat musical effects.  For example, there was a loud hit, and then the
|> contras came in for dramatic effect (remember that part?).

I like the show overall too.  But here's a question...  If one listened, one could here all sorts of horn licks from previous shows.  I realize that this is part of the Garfield/BC "style", but it was a bit annoying to expect them to jump into "America" or some other Bernstien piece.  They just seemed out of place at times... like they were just putting them in to show their chops.  They could do this with other licks.  (No flames allowed on this one... I am a big fan of Garfield - your biggest fans CAN be

 your biggest critics.)

|> The silent company front was kind of neat.

Kind of?  I only saw a close up of the guard.  If it was as clean as I could see, I was INCREDIBLE!  I thought that they should have gotten best aux. (my opinion).  They had WAY more stuff happening than BD, and although Madison and others had way-cool exchanges, nobody can touch the squeaky-clean yet musical flagwork from the Cadets.


|> CAVALIERS (Gavorkna Fanfare (Stamp), Cornish and English Dances
|> (Arnold), Peterloo Overture (Arnold)) -- This is some pretty serious
|> music that the Cavaliers played.  Gavorkna Fanfare was brought off
|> well.  The one criticism I have is when the low voices come in loud
|> for the first time, it didn't quite have the sonority I would have
|> liked to have heard (this is after hearing a recording of a wind
|> ensemble doing the piece).
|> 
|> Visually, there weren't too many outstanding drill moves, but the one
|> I liked the best was the one where the corps went to the edges of the
|> field and the color guard formed a squiggle thing in the middle.  This
|> isn't all that new, but it was neat because of the way it was
|> integrated with the descrecendo-ing snare.

I disagree about the lack of outstanding drill moves.  I thought that the drill was excellent.  It didn't have lots of death defying tricks, but it was very clean and free-flowing.  It used lots of cool visual effects (the collapsing horn line/guard kalidescope) and clean execution.  My argument here is that drill should be evaluated ALL the time, not just at the set points.  Drill is more than sets, it is (IMHO) more about the transistion of set to set.  Also, drill is only a part of the entire presentati

on (albeit a big part).  I think that drill for drill sake can detract from other parts of the show.


At least on TV, the Cavies were the best corps of the night.  I do think that there could have been others on other nights, but that is not what the judging system is about.  You don't get to carry your best performances in with you as you step off the line.  You do get a season of trying to educate the judges to look at the best parts, but you still have to lay it on the line come Saturday night.  It is a shame that this isn't fully understood, but that is the breaks.  If I were in charge, my favorite cor

ps would win (hmmm, lets give it to VK!), but then that is not the case.  (Back off man - I like VK!!  If you don't then flame yourself not me.  It's just an art form, not life & death!) 


--Dan Kinney