Friday, March 29, 2024

BOA Grand Nationals: St. James, Montgomery, Ala.

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INDIANAPOLIS (Nov. 14, 2009)—At the conclusion of the field show, entitled “Pop,” by the marching band from St. James School in Montgomery, Ala., a narrator poses the question, What’s on your iPod®?

It’s meant to cap off the band’s performance in the Bands of America Grand National Championship semi-finals here at Lucas Oil Stadium. “Pop” isn’t really a style per se, but a voice of any given generation, selected more by a popular “vote” than by any other method.

The show from St. James incorporates a great many styles, in fact, giving us a glimpse of each, and then moving on through the decades of the 20th century. It all started with Scott Joplin, the roots of jazz in the United States, and a little jazz combo:

The Big Band era brought swing dancers to the clubs, so musicians put down their horns and color guard members put down their flags temporarily and join in a dance, the Lindy, over the back, and all.

Director Susan Smith and drum major Emily Pipan lead a small unit from a small school, but that just makes each individual’s intensity ever more apparent.

The “Age of Aquarius” leads to a flying flute solo, clearly demonstrating the influences of jazz on something moving toward the Rock ‘n’ Roll we hear today, and then to a vocal trio with “Let the Sunshine In.”

In the next-to-last movement, an alto saxophonist and an artist ask, If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can’t I paint you?

And in a grand crowd-pleaser for the final movement, Ms. Pipan turns around and claps over her head, encouraging several thousand in the stands to do the same. All the popular dances from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even the 80s and 90s seem to happen on the same field here, as we hear “R-O-C-K in the U-S-A” repeated in rhythm. Driving and unavoidably uplifting.

The show was composed by Robert W. Smith, including the numbers “Rags to Riffs,” “Rock to Pop,” and “Star-Spangled Pop.”

St. James School is a nonsectarian day school with a highly competitive admissions process. It was voted the best private school in Montgomery last year, and it is the oldest, having been founded in 1955. About 1,000 K-12 students are enrolled in its classrooms, and every single student who graduated in the Class of 2009 received college acceptance, according to the school. For high school students, the school reports that annual tuition is about $9,383.

Paul Katulahttps://news.schoolsdo.org
Paul Katula is the executive editor of the Voxitatis Research Foundation, which publishes this blog. For more information, see the About page.

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