TubeNet

I am a Southern Californian. I was born in Riverside. I live in Riverside. I grew up in Colton and graduated from Colton High School in 1975.

The Colton High School Yellow Jacket Marching Band, when I was a member was a 225 member group that specialized in military street marching. As a sousaphone player, I wore the same exact uniform that everyone else in the band wore, including a three foot tall shako (that's a high fuzzy hat).

The shako served two purposes for the tuba players:

1) We looked like everyone else

2) Teenaged boys wore long hair in those days and we could hide our long locks in the hats.

On the street, we went nine across and 25 deep. We had eleven tubas--nine sousaphones in the tuba rank and two recording basses on the end files of the rank behind it.

Our competitions were Band Reviews. In this kind of contest, there is nothing fancy expected. The drum major uses either a military baton or a mace (a short baton or a long one). These two batons have very different styles.

First, the drums give a roll-off or there is a fanfare. Some bands, usually with Scottish themes, use a corps of bagpipes. The best known band that use bagpipes in Southern California are Glendora in Los Angeles County and Helix in San Diego County.

Then the march is played. It is a standard military march. Most bands play a march by Sousa or other standard march composer. But Overseas, a very unusual march by Malcolm Arnold, is also on the official list. The march is generally played without repeats. So when I was in the Colton band, we had to play a long enough march that the audience wouldn't get bored by hearing the same thing over and over again.

Usually, one march is memorized for the marching season. Some bands memorized more than one march. Here are the marches we played when I was a student at Colton High School for competition.

1971-72 Army of the Nile (Kenneth J. Alford*)
1972-73 The Rifle Regiment (John Philip Sousa)
1973-74 The Purple Carnival (Harry L. Alford)
1974-75 The Purple Pageant (Karl L. King)

One would think with the two purple marches that we were a purple band. No, Colton's colors are crimson and gold. Back in those days, we wore a uniform with trousers that were fire engine red.

The band reviews we participated back in those days included:

• Colton Invitational Band Review (host band)

• El Primero Band Review in Santa Monica

• Hawthorne Band Review

• California Band Review in Santa Ana

• All-Western Band Review in Long Beach (over 70 bands!)

• La Mesa Tournament of Bands

Sadly, none of those contests exist anymore. There were many more back in the old days. Today the Southern California band reviews that are left include:

• Rowland Band Review (Rowland Heights)

• Loara Band Review (Anaheim)

• Lester Oaks Band Review (Riverside) [may not be around anymore]

• Chino Invitational Band Review

• La Palma Band Review

• Chula Vista Band Review

• Arcadia Festival of Bands

• Antelope Valley Band Review (Lancaster)

• Sherman Oaks Band Review (Sherman Oaks [Los Angeles])

Now if anyone from Northern California can fill me in on the band reviews that are left up there, I would appreciate it.

Thanks for letting me share here.

Bill

_______________________________

*Pseudonym of Frederick Ricketts.

LoyalTubist wrote:Our competitions were Band Reviews. In this kind of contest, there is nothing fancy expected. The drum major uses either a military baton or a mace (a short baton or a long one). These two batons have very different styles.

Boy, it's a smaill world.... my room mate at Cal Poly, SLO one year was the brother of your drum major, Conrad Lucero.

LoyalTubist wrote:Usually, one march is memorized for the marching season. Some bands memorized more than one march. Here are the marches we played when I was a student at Colton High School for competition.

1971-72 Army of the Nile (Kenneth J. Alford*)
1972-73 The Rifle Regiment (John Philip Sousa)
1973-74 The Purple Carnival (Harry L. Alford)
1974-75 The Purple Pageant (Karl L. King)

Small world again... I just happen to have an MP3 recording of you playing Purple Carnival at the 1973 El Primero Band Review in Santa Monica on one the many websites I run, called the World of Pageantry. Plus I also remember standing on the sidewalk right next to your band and listening to them warming up and practicing Purple Carnival in the formation area on Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach at the All-Western that same year. I remember seeing several piccolo trumpets being used in the trumpet section for that march.

LoyalTubist wrote:The band reviews we participated back in those days included:

• All-Western Band Review in Long Beach (over 70 bands!)

I used to work at the All-Western Band Review. I was the poor soul in charge of the formation area in 1979 when it rained and we had to go inside the Long Beach Arena! Just imagine 20 bands at once warming up inside a great big concrete convention center. My ears still ring....

LoyalTubist wrote:Now if anyone from Northern California can fill me in on the band reviews that are left up there, I would appreciate it.

Let's see..... I am not from NorCal but there are the...
Petaluma Band Review (NCBA)
Las Plumas/Oroville Band Festivo (NCBA)
Cupertino Tournament of Bands (NCBA)
Hanford Band Review (IND)
Visalia Band Review (IND)
Golden Eagle Spectacular (Loomis, CA) (NCBA)
Santa Cruz Band Review (NCBA)
Foothill Band Review (Pleasanton, CA) (NCBA)
Westside Classic Band Review (Newman, CA) (NCBA)
Selma Band Review & Tournament (SCJA)
Liberty Band Review (Bakersfield, CA) (IND)
Folsom Fall Festival (NCBA)
Grape Bowl Classic (Lodi, CA) (NCBA)
Pismo Beach Band Review (IND)
Central California Band Review (Madera, CA) (NCBA)
Vintage Reserve Band Review (Napa, CA) (NCBA)
Review of Champions (Stockton, CA) (NCBA)
Tournament of Champions (Fairfield, CA) (NCBA)

That should just about do it...

If old men get nostalgic, I plead guilty on both counts. All this talk about bands in southern California certainly stimulates my memory.

I grew up near Riverside in the greater Los Angeles area, but have lived in the San Francisco Bay area since 1961. My high school band won the Sweepstakes award at the Long Beach All Western Band Review (93 bands) in 1949. We played a march "Show Boy" which I haven't heard since. Can't remember the composer. The two bands that impressed me most were huge bands from San Diego----Grossmont High and Mt. Helix High. Gawd, you could hear those bands from five miles away.

Just guessing that only inland empire/southern california people will understand and appreciate this post....

Bill, you left out the Chaffey High School Tournament of Bands in Ontario. It was started in the early 60's by Jack Mercer who now conducts the Ontario Community Band.

http://www.chaffey.org/departments/perf ... _37th.html

http://www.chaffey.org/departments/perf ... m_tob.html

It's been running for about 40 years but on a much smaller scale now. Here's another link that talks about Jack Mercer and the community band.

http://www.showband.net/director.html

Enjoy, Tim

There is competition in Placentia for high school bands, but it's not a band review, per se. It is a parade with other kinds of entries. A band review is a parade of nothing but bands.

LoyalTubist wrote:There is competition in Placentia for high school bands, but it's not a band review, per se. It is a parade with other kinds of entries. A band review is a parade of nothing but bands.

Well, if that's how you want to catagorize them, scratch the Arcadia, Chino, Lester Oaks, Loara, and many other band reviews from the list because they all have field show contests as part of their overall competition. Most show hosts have venues for bands to compete in separate events and some have special awards for combined scores from parade and field. My opinion is that if they give scores for just the parade portion then it can be a "band review"! In a lot of these competitions the bands that perform in the parade are not the same bands that perform on the field. The San Diego area bands tend to compete in both.

For those back east that want to see a couple of great parade bands in action check out these view clips. West coast know HOW to do parade!
Rancho Bernardo High School
Arcadia High School (huge band of 400, they were featured in the 2004 Presidential Inaugural Parade representing California)

In a band review, you don't get horse#%&* on your shoes. We learned that from day one of high school band.

LoyalTubist wrote:In a band review, you don't get horse#%&* on your shoes. We learned that from day one of high school band.

Yes, that part IS true.

All the competitions listed above do have "band only" parade venues as part of their competitions. I have attended several of them so I know first hand.

cavies style

Although technically not in Northern California, but still judged by the NCBA is the Robert McQueen High School Marching Extravaganza in Reno, Nev.(just 10 miles from the California State Line!). That is where I went to School, and we won a great many awards in Northern California.

About headgear... We wore berets until half-way through my Sophomore marching season, and then the new uniforms came. Then first contest we wore our new Concord Blue Devils style uniforms was the Independece High School Invitational (San Jose) in 1996. I think we got away with no Shako that time and then the band moms realized they could get a shako on us... It was nice while it lasted.

The sousaphone I used for my sophomore and junior years was a huge Buescher. To put the bell straight forward meant that it would be touching the left side of my head. Because of uniformity, that was no good, either for the lack of headgear, as well as uniformity of bell appearance. What I had to do was hook my elbow around the main tuning slide to move the sousaphone about 12 inches to the right. It sounds uncomfortable but I got used to holding it that way. It worked.

When I went to college, I couldn't understand why they didn't give the tuba players hats. They tried to tell me it wouldn't work, until I showed them some of my high school pictures. But they still didn't go for it.



This is the Loara High School Saxon Band from Anaheim, California, marching in the 1967 All-Western Band Review in Long Beach. Look very closely at the headgear the tuba players were wearing. They were no different than anyone else!

Oh, yes, Placentia does have a band review. When I was growing up this was a community parade. which we played for. I stand corrected. Sorry.