Re: CALIFORNIA MARCHING YOUTH BANDS FROM THE 70'S AND 80'S
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 2:44 pm
Yep...apparently and they did the parade for over 40 years straight,heh.CrystalMage wrote:My view of LBJCB in the Santa Claus Lane parade is that they not only had a great presence with their uniforms, big sound, good sound, and large numbers, but also, they were consistent in generating that presence. So, they were reliable. If you needed a impressive, All-American band, LBJCB was as good of a bet as buying stock in IBM usually would be!
Yeah probably. Dunno what the details of that would be tho. I seem to recall a couple times Winds being last band but I could be mixed up on that with maybe another parade or something.CrystalMage wrote:And I do know the parade officials for the Hollywood Santa Claus Lane parade had certain standards, such as being able to march at least a certain number of members. And I also figure, but I’m guessing, that LBJCB at some point in the past, established itself with the parade.
And Marker was a good salesman, haha.CrystalMage wrote:So, it makes sense to me why they would be invited to many events. You really couldn’t go wrong with having them at an event.
I was there in/out too, altho not for the Hollywood parade,etc. When Monte was there Cabbies were the largest I'd ever seen. I think Monte and Dave S. did a GREAT job with Cabbies when they were there. Also, with the decline in membership through the 80's even LBJCB started marching that odd/even rank deal.CrystalMage wrote:I remember that the Cabbies marched in that parade in 1979. And the reason we qualified was due to a membership drive that was geared, at least in my view, to have enough marching members to qualify. Even then, we marched an Odd-Even formation to give the appearance of a larger band.
So true with most groups. Still....I'd have done the parade cuz it's great PR,eh?CrystalMage wrote:In the Cabbies case, some of us would rather have forgone that parade and put higher standards on the new members skill on their instrument. We were getting cleaner during that past summer and were enthusiastic about that. But, in time, things worked themselves out – flaky folks didn’t like the work involved so they left, and those who enjoyed being there, improved, and it was fun having a lot of members who enjoyed the whole thing.
I think so too, altho he really didn't form the band to be like it was, hence the name. It was supposed to be a Sousa like concert band mainly but in 1952 the kids wanted to try a parade, donned hawaiian shirts and marched taking their first sweepstakes. Can't remember which parade it was as the history went.CrystalMage wrote:Yeah, Marvin Marker definitely had a flare for pageantry and he created the band to express that for sure. He found a niche and really made it work.
The thing about the niche which I find neat was/is they don't HAVE to be "corps style". While the rest of bandom was going with rudimental drums with every kind of percussion instrument one could think of to strap on, and general "corps style" marching, LBJCB kept it simple and geared themselves more for parades for competition. I think that was smart on Marker's part because as we all know how involved and time consuming it is to put a competitive field show together. "Concert Band" DID a few field shows here and there for exhibition tho, even a corps show, but was way simple for competition standards,etc.