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Let’s talk drums and drumming, life and loves, and perhaps a little more…
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This… is my story…
Some of it personal… most of it musical… It might not be very exciting but it’s a look back to when I started this journey, the paths I chose and what’s brought me to where I am today in my life and my ongoing musical career. I guess, in all honesty, it will only show that my memory didn’t completely go with my hair!!
I started off in a summer stock production pit orchestras which eventually led to my first band – a Dixieland sextet, followed by a blur – a plethora if you will – of genres, players and venues – rock, jazz, fusion, big band, country… dinner theaters, show bands and lounge acts, wedding / corporate party bands… symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, percussion ensembles… marching bands, drum & bugle corps, fife & drum corps, bagpipe bands… Atlantic City casinos, off Broadway productions, yada, yada, yada… throw in some teaching, writing and arranging and it’s been a hell of a ride!!
This section is split into smaller chunks to make things a little easier to follow and introduces my family and follows me through my high school graduation…
Then there’s ‘The Early Years – 70’s & 80’s‘, ‘The 90’s and Then Some‘, ‘Little Big Time‘ focusing primarily on my time with ‘Skeeter Creek’, and a series of ‘Living the Dream‘ pages which chronicle my time with ‘Funk Evolution beginning in 2015.
But before I venture all the way back, a little about the present…
Today I’m the Micro Computer Specialist / Network Manager / Webmaster / Facility Comptroller / Media Specialist / Model School Liaison (and ‘Chief Cook and Bottle Washer’) for the Greenwich Central School District; a marching member of the Avant Garde Jr. Drum & Bugle Corps Alumni Drumline and Alumni Corps; am happily married with a lovely wife Julie and daughter Selena Rose; and I still ‘moonlight’ as a professional musician (if you can call 80-100 performances a year ‘moonlighting’).
I’m often asked about how I got to this point in my life and who were my influences so I’ll start there – with the musical ones – before breaking into a chronological recollection (as best I can remember)…
My Influences…
Growing up I was a big band jazz fan… I loved listening to the masters – Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Duke, etc. – but also enjoyed the less ‘mainstream’ like Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson, Rob McConnell. And of course more contemporary groups like Chicago, Tower of Power (who I just finally saw live in 2016) and Blood, Sweat & Tears… I didn’t realize it then but between these groups and my later discovery of drum & bugle corps I apparently had a love of horns starting back then!!
Back to the bands… I knew Danny Seraphine of course because I grew up playing along with the ‘Chicago at Carnegie Hall’ concert – all 4 albums… but I couldn’t tell you who most of the big band drummers were (I remember Butch Miles with Basie, Peter Erskine, Greg Bissonette and Brian Wolfe with Maynard) but I did have some popular favorites growing up… Buddy Rich of course, Eddie Shaunessy with the ‘Tonight Show Band’ and Louis Belson though I never had an overwhelming desire to play double bass… I did try a DW double bass pedal rig in the mid-80’s but it just never caught on with me.
When I was 16, my then girlfriend’s family (more about her later) and mine got us tickets to see Buddy Rich in concert at the Lake Theater (of all places) in Lake George!! It was his second show of the night and started at 1:00AM… back then (1976) kids could still walk the streets without fear of being kidnapped, robbed or otherwise assaulted… It was a great set – a typical Buddy show and I got to sit 30 feet from him!!
I was also fortunate enough to catch a performance of one of the last Count Basie tours and Duffy Jackson was drumming… After the set at JB Scott’s on Central Avenue in Albany, NY, the place was emptying and I approached the stage to tell him how much I enjoyed his playing and he jumped right down, introduced himself and started talking like we’d known each other our whole lives. He noticed we were wearing the same pewter drumstick necklaces (in addition to sharing the same initials). He asked if I was sticking around for the second set – wait there’s a second set?? Where’s everyone going?!? I stayed in the half empty house for another killer set by the Basie big band, went to say my ‘goodnights’ to Duffy and he called me up on stage and we chatted the entire time he packed up… Turns out he was the drummer on the ‘Name That Tune’ TV show way back when… easily one of the nicest guys I’ve met!!
Over the years I became a fan of other drummers… Phil Ehart of Kansas, Joe Morello, Ringo (yes – Ringo… there’s a simplicity there that’s somehow difficult to emulate – when is a shuffle not a shuffle or vise-versa?), Steve Gadd (later I found out there was a drum corps connection there), Dave Weckl, Vinnie Calaiuta, Stewart Copeland, Dave Garibaldi, Billy Cobham, Carter Beuford, Harvey Mason, Mike Mangini, Steve Smith, Tony Williams, Neil Peart and I developed what I would call an ‘all too late’ appreciation for Ginger Baker, John Bonham and many more whose names I either can’t remember or sadly never knew.
And last but certainly not least, being from New York, I can’t tell you how many times I was able to see
the amazing Frank Briggs perform live with the band ‘805’!!
Click the photo below to visit his site and if you’re a drummer, pay very close attention!!—
Now let’s stroll down memory lane… Take it from the top!!
In the Beginning… two tiny amoeba… too far back?? OK – let’s jump ahead a little…
1960… I was born in Glens Falls Hospital, yada, yada, yada… grew up in Lake George, NY with my parents Elaine (originally from Chestertown) and Lewis (originally from Greenwich). We were homeless for a stretch in the late 60’s – living at the drive-in theatre where they both worked at the time. I graduated from Lake George High School in 1978 majoring in Mathematics and Business and settled in Queensbury in 2005.
This is my Dad’s Greenwich HS graduation picture from 1936
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And here’s the school band – Dad’s behind the snare drum… I walk across that very stage almost daily.
As long as I’m at it, here’s Dad on the Greenwich Baseball Team…
In addition to Mom, Dad and I there was my younger brother Larry – a former trumpeter and now accomplished bagpiper…
Let’s stop right here for a minute since Newhart fans are probably dying to ask where my other brother Daryl is – I haven’t heard that in at least… 10 minutes!! Oddly enough, we DO have a half sister Cheryl (Larry, Daryl and CHERYL (close enough?)… boy will we be glad when that show fades from memory… Now fast forward a few years to when I discovered music…
1968… I began bangin’ on stuff longer ago than I can remember – I started ‘playing’ drums at about age 8 – introduced to the drums by my father and began taking lessons in school at age 10. My Dad and Mom bought my first drum when I was all of 7 or 8 (see picture at right – note the ‘Buddy Rich’ left handed grip though I didn’t know it at the time). Both of my parents had a musical background – Dad played drums and piano and Mom played guitar and sang… She also played bass drum in the Chestertown High School Marching Band. I mention this only because during one particular parade the band was at the top of the hill in the middle of town when the straps on the drum broke and sent it tumbling down the hill with her chasing after it!!
1970… My first drum teacher was Mr. Don Siano (who was also the high school chorus teacher) at Lake George Elementary School when I was in the 5th grade, followed by Mr. Hirum Bevins in 6th grade who was the Jr. and Sr. High School Bands Director where I started playing in the 7th grade. They shaped me through my early stages, taught me to read music…
My Mom was a country fan and I can still remember a weekly trip with her, my brother and my grandmother to see Sonny Thompson & the Mavericks when they played at this local radio station sponsored show at little roadside drive-in in Lake George called JC’s Pitstop. I would sit on a cement block as close as I could get to their drummer Tommy Burke… it wasn’t until a couple decades later when I started playing that I realized that these guys were local legends!!
On the flipside, my Dad exposed me to all of the great big bands so I was also a huge jazz fan while I was in school. I grew up at the local drive-in movie theaters where Mom and Dad worked (and, as I said earlier, we even lived for a stretch) and later the indoor theaters when they became more widespread in the area in the early 70’s. Dad and I would usually get home just about in time to catch Johnny Carson’s monologue and I would anxiously listen to the guest list hoping for an appearance by Buddy Rich who was a frequent visitor and I was a huge fan. But I digress…
1975… Mr. Siano and I would reunite in 1975 (I was 15) when he and drama club director (and social studies teacher) Mr. Michael ‘Mickey’ Luce asked me to play the drums in the pit band for the Sr. class production of ‘Anything Goes’. It sounded good to me and I did 3 more Sr. plays… ‘Finian’s Rainbow’… ‘South Pacific’… and my own Sr. class production of ‘Annie Get Your Gun’. They added a special percussion feature during the Indian ceremony at the end of the first act for me to ‘cut loose’ a little which required me to appear on stage and in costume (the first and last times I’ve ever ‘acted’)!! 1975 was also the year I got my first drum set – a Christmas gift from my parents… that’s me at left Christmas morning in one of Mom’s hand knitted sweater vests…
In addition to Mr. Siano and Mr. Luce I had the chance to work with two excellent pianists in the ‘pit’ – Ms. Margaret Leonard and Mrs. Fay Robinson.
Ms. Leonard was responsible for me landing my first professional gig – also in 1975 (the same year I was introduced to drum & bugle corps but I’ll come back to that) – in the pit orchestra of a summer stock production of ‘The Man of LaMancha’ at the Towers Hall Playhouse in Lake George, NY working for the late Mr. David Eastwood. The show ran 6 nights a week for 3 weeks plus weeks of daily rehearsals for which I was paid the grand total of… $50.
HOORAAAAAYYYY!!! I WAS 15 YEARS OLD AND I WAS A PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN!!!!
I would also pickup the Thursday Night Special when the drummer went back to college – my first production (I would play in 4 others in various theater groups) of the ‘The Fantastiks’.
I also picked up the drumming duties for the ‘Thursday Night Special’ (the night the regular show took off) – the first of several casts of ‘The Fantastiks’ that I would perform with over the years to follow. Towers Hall closed after the ’75 season and Mr. Eastwood moved his company to the Holiday Inn where it became the Lake George Dinner Theatre which still runs today. If you’re done trying to find me on your own I’ll tell you… that’s me kneeling front, left… ripped jeans, flannel shirt, long hair, bandana and all.
1976… Our nation celebrated its bicentennial and Mr. Bevins formed a special group to take part in the numerous festivities that would be taking place – The Sentinels Fife & Drum Corps shown in the clipping to the right… That’s Mr. Bevins up front (he carried a flag of the original colonies), Floyd Martindale and Danny Burden behind him (two of the best trumpets in the band), Beth Merrill and Chris Rice on fifes and myself drumming in the back right of the picture. Totally obscured are my good friends Gary Moon on bass drum (Gary plays all over New England as a solo performer and has released several CDs of original music) and Jim Crawford on snare. Jim and I still drum together as members of the Avant Garde Jr. Drum & Bugle Corps Alumni Drumline but more on that later.
On a personal note, this was the year I found my first true love… I credit her and her family for turning my life around. Because of that relationship, my grades in school improved dramatically and gone was the long hair, bandanas, ripped jeans and flannel shirts. For my 16th birthday our families bought us tickets to the 1:00am performance of Buddy Rich at the Lake Theater in Lake George, NY!! (As I said earlier, back then kids could still walk the streets of the village at all hours of the day or night without fear of being molested, kidnapped or otherwise attacked)… Coincidentally, this was the year my wife was born…
1977… During my junior year at Lake George Mr. Ray Durkee became band director and taught me a lot about professionalism, respect and showmanship and took the band program – concert, jazz and marching – to a level never seen at the school – before or since.
The bands began taking part in several high profile parades / competitions and other events including the ground breaking for Olympic Stadium in Lake Placid in 1978. My favorite recollection from that parade was waiting to step off… One of our three buses broke down and another went back to get them. I was on the first bus that made it to the beginning so there we stood – a handful of drummers in our new, ‘hip’ uniforms (seen at left) – wondering if the other two bus loads of members would even make it.
About this time we noticed several small school bands in our vicinity and they were kind of snickering at our feeble turnout… or our funny hats… This went on for some time as the parade start time kept getting closer and closer. We were beginning to wonder if we would even get to march – we didn’t have enough players in any section to play anything and make it sound respectable. Then, off in the distance… is that… could it be?? IT WAS!! Here comes everyone from the other two buses – MARCHING single file back to our start location!! We were screaming and cheering as we were elated just to see them but they looked so ‘badass’ MARCHING – not just walking – back to meet us. The snide remarks and tittering from the other schools quickly turned to total silence or out right ‘holy craps’! The band was huge a that time – especially by Lake George standards as the school itself wasn’t the size it is now… we marched in the Lake Placid Olympics Ground Breaking parade and 2 years later would take part in the actual Olympics Parade in 1980!! Mr. Durkee was making plans to participate in the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC as well!! As I said, I graduated in ’78 but was still teaching the drumline in 1980… Mr. Durkee made it fun and had quickly grown it into something that more and more kids wanted to be involved in including non-instrumentalists.
And I continued to play in the ‘pit’ whenever the Lake George Dinner Theater did a musical. Probably my favorite production was a musical review where the orchestra actually was staged on the stage – we even had dressing rooms!!. The girlfriend I spoke of earlier snuck into the hotel on opening night and fastened a silver star on my dressing room door. The first act was a staged ‘rehearsal’ with everyone in street clothes acting surprised to see an audience. Then the second act was the actual ‘performance’ (with different musical numbers of course) and everyone dressed more appropriately.
The last Dinner Theater production I did there was ‘I Do, I Do’ in the spring of 1978 and the bass player was Jamie Dier who also played upright bass with ‘The Dixie Daddy’s Dandies of Jazz’… the Daddies were a local Dixieland band lead by the original ‘Dixie Daddy’ – drummer, Mr. Larry Johnston who was also the head of the Audio / Video department at LG school (and a drum corps alum).
I was a big fan of the group and had the good fortune to see Mr. Johnston play with the band numerous times on the steamboat Minne-Ha-Ha with my Mom and Grandmother from the time I was about 14… he’d see me out there – feet tapping – and would always ask how old I was – anxious to have me join the musician’s local and get me playing. Unfortunately he passed away my junior year at LG… It was at a football game in Fort Ann, NY and he was going to video tape Mr. Durkee’s newly revamped marching band’s halftime show when he suffered a heart attack. The Dixie band honored him by retaining the name but changing ‘Daddy’s’ to ‘Daddies’ because ‘there will never be another ‘Dixie Daddy’.
Just about any kid playing in a school band dreams of playing with the jazz or stage band. Mr. Durkee even took that a step further – his stage band didn’t perform 2 or 3 numbers as part of the Spring Concert but rather performed a full evening’s worth of entertainment which he called ‘Cabaret Night’ and included featured numbers as well as vocalists and dancers backed by the band and audience seating at regular tables with waiters, waitresses and refreshments – again opening up participation to kids not necessarily involved with the band program!! The picture at right is me at my only Cabaret Night in 1978 (my senior year).
Mr. Durkee (a Lake George alum) had visions of greatness for the Lake George music program and was (I believe) promptly run out of town by the school. He landed in Florida where he had numerous state champions in all categories of music and also ran an incredibly successful arts and theatre program. In 2010 he returned to the area and took over the Lake George Community Band.
I graduated in 1978 – majoring in mathematics and business as I said – the recipient of the John Phillips Sousa award and named to the 1978 edition of Who’s Who In American Music – many thanks to Mr. Durkee, Mr. Bevins, Mr. Siano and of course my parents. Mr. Durkee asked me to stay on at LGHS as a drum line instructor for his marching band until he was replaced 1980. His successor asked me not to work with the kids anymore – he ‘didn’t want them learning from two different sources’. From that point on the school band took a nose dive and has been an annual ‘no show’ for the town’s Memorial Day Parade ever since…
I went on to write and/or teach several area Junior and Senior drum & bugle corps as well as high school drum lines at Gloversville (who went on to win a state championship), Schalmont, Ballston Spa, Warrensburg, Salem, Broadalbin, Cambridge, Greenwich, Whitehall and Amsterdam just to name a few. And Mr. Durkee and I would repeat our roles as conductor and percussionist over 30 years later but you’ll have to keep reading to find out more…
At my last high school concert (1978) I was approached by Mr. Mike Stone, head of the music department at a Adirondack Community College who asked if I’d be interested in playing with his concert band, doing some teaching and starting a Percussion Ensemble program. I jumped at the opportunity and soon found myself in the Musician’s Local and performing with the college’s concert band as well as the union’s wind ensemble (a small concert band), marching band (maybe 2 parades in 5 years), the summer concert and big bands (2 concerts every week, all summer, no rehearsals – all sight reading) and the newly formed symphony orchestra – all comprised primarily of local music teachers. The whole experience served to sharpen my musical reading skills as well as my writing and arranging.
Click here to read on as I join my first band… and so it begins…