Alfred Spriester, DHS Director of Bands

I am very sorry to share the news that former DHS Director of Bands Alfred Spriester has passed away. Here is a note from his daughter, Pam:

Gabriel has a new trumpet player in his heavenly orchestra today.

We are so sad to share the news, but Al Spriester had a date with an angel and died in the early morning hours of February 19, 2012. Since his wife Dorothy's passing in 2009 he had been living with his youngest son's family in Duluth, GA. He enjoyed the company and care of Bart, Mary, and the kids for the past three years watching his youngest grandsons and granddaughters grow up. He was 82 years old and cared for all his sons, daughters, and grandchildren who lived near and far. Now that he has been reunited with his life's love we hope he will also be reunited with his long lost grandfather and mother.

Dad will be cremated in GA with an impending service in Illinois. When we have further details of the arrangements, we will let you know through this email address.

You may email his daughter Pam at pambell405@gmail.com for additional information.

Peace to all,

The Family of Alfred Spriester (1929-2012)

Al was the band director at DHS from the very earliest days of the school's existence in the 1960s until his retirement in 1987. Under his direction, the program grew in size and stature, performing for the inauguration of Governor Dan Walker in 1973 and for a presidential visit from Ronald Reagan in the mid 1980s. His love for the marching band was evidenced by their many successful and award-winning performances at the Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade and the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival. He brought numerous guest performers to solo with the band and took the students on band trips all over the country and Canada. Al mentored hundreds of students during his tenure, and I am grateful for the wonderful program that he created and I have had the honor of continuing.

Over the next week or so, I'll have more to share, including pictures from his years at DHS as well information about any services.

Month of Lists - Mardi Gras Mix Tape

All over the world, from Rio De Janeiro to Baranquilla, from Trinidad to Miami, it is Carnaval time! This is the last big blow-out before the Christian season of Lent, a time of reflection that leads up to Easter. In cities all over the world, there are parties, parades, and lots of music. The best known celebration in America goes by the French name of Mardi Gras, and it is held in New Orleans. If you, like me, are stuck in Chicagoland and can't get down to the Crescent City, I offer you yet another list, this time a Spotify playlist of some of the best NOLA music you can find. The songs include classic jazz, R&B, zydeco, funk, Cajun, and plenty of second-line rhythms. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

1. Dr. John, "Mardi Gras Day"
2. Louis Armstrong, "Hotter Than That"
3. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, "Down By the Riverside"
4. Fats Domino, "Ain't That a Shame?"
5. Clifton Chenier, "Ay-Te Te Fee"
6. The Meters, "Look-Ka Py Py"
7. Dr. John, "Iko Iko"
8. The Neville Brothers, "Yellow Moon"
9. Professor Longhair, "Red Beans"
10. Nicholas Payton, "Zigaboogaloo"
11. BeauSoleil, "Acadian Two Step"
12. The Marsalis Family, "Swinging at the Haven"
13. Trombone Shorty, "Buckjump"

A Month of Lists - Ancient Mix Tapes

When I was in high school and college in the 80s, creating the perfect mix tape was a big deal. We would buy 90-minute Maxell cassettes and load them with as much great music as we could, taping them off of record albums and 45 rpm singles. As I got into my late teens, I found myself very nostalgic for the great pop tunes of my youth, so I took my old 45s (and albums I checked out from the Northbrook Public Library--I know, that's as bad as illegal downloading, but I didn't have a moral compass like I do now), and I put together these collections of songs I really liked. I still have the tapes, and some of my choices are a bit embarrassing at this point, but others hold up well. Here is one labeled "Seventies/Wings":

Side A

1. "The World is a Ghetto," War
2. "China Grove," The Doobie Brothers
3. "A Horse with No Name," America
4. "Star Baby," The Guess Who
5. "Summer Breeze," Seals and Crofts
6. "Jimmy Loves Maryann," Looking Glass
7. "Helen Wheels," Wings
8. "Bennie and the Jets," Elton John
9. "Sundown," Gordon Lightfoot
10. "Black Water," The Doobie Brothers
11. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Gordon Lightfoot

Side B
Most of the album Wings Greatest Hits (Paul McCartney's post-Beatles band)

I'll stand by numbers 1, 2, 7, 8, and 10. The rest are a bit lame, but they do connect me to certain times and places in my childhood, so they made the cut.

Here's another, simply labeled "Seventies":

Side A

1. "Rock On," David Essex
2. "Night Moves," Bob Seger
3. "Hotel California," Eagles
4. "New Kid in Town," Eagles
5. "Life in the Fast Lane," Eagles
6. "Year of the Cat," Al Stewart
7. "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," Paul Simon
8. "Blinded by the Light," Manfred Mann
9. "Life's Been Good," Joe Walsh
10. "Fly Like an Eagle," Steve Miller Band

Side B

1. "Will it Go Round in Circles," Billy Preston
2. "Evil Ways," Santana
3. "Killer Queen," Queen
4. "Sultans of Swing," Dire Straits
5. "Help Me," Joni Mitchell
6. "Superstition," Stevie Wonder
7. "American Pie," Don McLean
8. "You're No Good," Linda Ronstadt
9. "Sister Golden Hair," America
10. "Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting," Elton John

Wow. While there's some very cool Eagles, Joe Walsh, and Dire Straits tunes, there's still Al Stewart and America. Yeesh!

It's interesting to see how many of these tunes I have since purchased on iTunes or digitized from some of the less scratchy records in my collection. Now my iPod is like an uber-mix tape, not nearly as focused and never in the same order. I guess a great mix tape is analagous to a really good iPod playlist, minus the shuffle feature.

Hey, kids--ask to see your parents' old mix tapes! If they say they don't have any, either your grandma threw them out, or they are lying to you and don't want you to know what they used to listen to. I leave you with this:

A Month of Lists - Repertoire, Part 2

On the first entry for the "Month of Lists," I listed the most often performed pieces in the DHS band repertoire since 1988. Now I'd like to count down the composers whose music we've performed the most. Here they are, in reverse order:

• Tied for tenth place with 12 times: Leonard Bernstein, Charles Carter, John Barnes Chance, Gustav Holst, William Latham, Henry Fillmore, and John O'Reilly
• 9th place with 13 times: David Holsinger
• Tied for 7th with 14 times: James Swearingen and Frank Erickson
• 6th with 16 times: John Philip Sousa
• Tied for 4th with 18 times: Frank Ticheli and Karl King
• 3rd with 19 times: Claude T. Smith
• 2nd with 21 times: my all-time favorite composer, Ralph Vaughn Williams
• And the winner is, with 26 DHS band performances in the last 24 seasons, Percy Grainger!

A Month of Lists - Non-Traditional Jazz Instruments

The Jazz Band had a great time yesterday at the Evanston Jazz Festival. The students played very well, we had a great hometown crowd of parents and siblings, and the adjudicators really dug what we were doing, calling us "very sophisticated." They also challenged us to play without sheet music and to get some gigs in the public. Afterwards we went to a workshop with Victor Goines and Orbert Davis that was excellent, especially since we got to hear them play in a quintet. After a hearty dinner at Buffalo Joe's, we returned for the evening concert with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. This is a group that starts with a jazz quintet and adds flutes, clarinet, oboe, bass clarinet, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, and a string quartet. It was an interesting show with some outstanding extended solo work by Victor Goines on tenor sax.

Anyway, the whole day made me think of another list: all of the non-traditional jazz instruments we've used over the years in the DHS Jazz Band. Since we don't have the typical big band with 5 trumpets, 5 trombones, 5 saxes, and rhythm section, and since we create all of our own arrangements, we can have any instrument that we want in our group. Here are some of the ones we've featured since 1988:

• piccolo (as recently as last night)
• flute (from Paula Derdiger in the 1990s through Emma Burrows and Lauren Smith in the 2000s and Rahm Silverglade and Jett in the 2010s)
• clarinet (We actually had two at the same time a while back. Zander Meisner went on to the traveling cast of Cats, and Nick McConnell discovered one of the largest black holes ever found.)
• Eb contrabass clarinet (played by Justin Davidson, an all-stater)
• oboe, English horn, and bassoon (coming this spring!)
• horn (Zev Saffir, before he switched to the one below, and Rahm last year for "Boplicity")
• mellophone (when Zev decided that the horn was too "slippery" for jazz)
• euphonium (two offensive linemen, Carl Buettgen and current DHS English teacher, Brandon Geuder)
• tuba (TJ, again in "Boplicity")
• marimba (for a Pat Metheny tune, "Open Your Eyes You Can Fly," and in last year's ill-fated "mallet forest")
• tam-tam or gong (used to make the world's largest ride cymbal for Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" at Jazz in the Meadows)
• chimes and timpani (can't remember when)
• banjo (a few times by the likes of Steve DiDomenico and Logan Bloom for various New Orleans numbers)
• violin (nationally-recognized soloist and organic farmer, Adam DeGraff, and local prog-rock guitarist Jared Rabin)
• cello (I'm pretty sure Mark Murphy played cello on a ballad I wrote for the band in the early 90s)

Honorable mention must go to:

• harp (Brian Pflaum in a chamber jazz piece written by artist-in-residence Geoff Shell)
• oud (played in Monday and Tuesday Afternoon Jazz by Gordy)

Instruments we've never used, but I've wanted to:

• accordion (we never did get Aaron Zemach to play accordion in a tune)
• viola (just so I could write in alto clef)
• kora (an African harp, not commonly played by DHS students)
• mbira (an African thumb piano, see above)
• organ (not just an organ patch on an electric keyboard, but a true Hammond B3 with foot pedals and rotating Leslie speaker)
• cuica (a Brazilian friction drum used in samba music)

Maybe somewhere in one of our sender schools, there's a fourth grader who rocks out on accordion while listening to John Coltrane albums...

Just a typical day in band...

As part of a yearlong unit on 20th century music, we discussed minimalism today in Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble. Both groups are playing a post-minimalist piece at the moment; SB is doing Brian Balmages' Reverberations, and WE is preparing Michael Torke's Saxophone Concerto, which we will play with soloist Susan Fancher on March 22. So, to give some context, we listened to a lot of classic minimalism today. Here is the playlist for today and Monday's sessions:

• Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ, Steve Reich
• The Four Sections, Steve Reich
• Come Out, Steve Reich
• In C, Terry Riley
• A Short Ride in a Fast Machine, John Adams

Here's a Spotify playlist of the pieces.

In Wind Ensemble, we extended our learning by trying to perform In C, which is a series of 53 short melodic fragments that are repeated over and over and over. Each musician decides when to move on to the next. It was interesting how many students loved it and how many hated it--quite the polarizing experience!

I also received the juniors' ethnomusicology papers in which they present their research about the music of their heritage. I'll be reading about Russia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Korea, Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, Hungary, France, and Jewish klezmer music. Always a fun time!

DHS Band Alum Performs on Jimmy Kimmel Live

DHS Band alum Adam Ollendorff played guitar in the 1995-1996 jazz band and starred as Conrad Birdie in the DHS production of Bye Bye Birdie. Since then, he's been carving out a nice career as a professional guitarist, playing dobro, lap steel, and pedal steel in all sorts of roots/Americana/country styles with a wide variety of artists. I just heard from him recently, and he shared some YouTube clips of him playing with Nashville singer/songwriter Will Hoge on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Check him out to see another local boy who has made the big time: