Thursday May 11th 2023 1:00 to 3:30 - Meet & greet - get you instrument if borrowing from the band - practice on your own 3:30 to 5:30 - Rehearsal on the REL auditorium stage 5:30 - 6:45 - Dinner provided by band boosters 7:00 - 8:30 - Concert. Order of performance Concert Band Concert Band Advanced Symphonic Band Alumni Band Wind Ensemble
Concert Music posted below Multiple part instruments - print out all the parts - unless you really like/want a certain part and we will organize when we meet to rehearse
You can get started by going to the marching band page and downloading the "Traditionals" music for your instrument. We will perform the "Alma Mater" (school song), "Long Ago" (original song written for the Lee band by alumni Leon Steward), and "Dull Razor" as part of the concert along with our feature piece, "The greatest Showman", linked below by instrument family.
All former Lee HS band directors are welcome to also attend and participate in the event as well as get on the podium to conduct one of our traditionals for the concert. Let your favorite band director know so they can sign up.
Gander Band Stories Shared with us and now shared with you with permission We would love to share yours. Send me an email (robert.poulin@gccisd.net) or PM on Facebook
From: Dwight Young. c/o 1964 Robert, I contacted Robert “Bebo” Huwieler who was the 1964 Dull Razor Trumpet virtuoso about the band reunion. He said: “I don't even have a horn. I spent a part of my last summer in Great Bend instructing the soprano horn line ... the Jesus Christ Superstar show. But left mid-summer when KU offered me a shot at their PhD psych program. When my oldest daughter Cara asked me to teach her trumpet in middle school, we spent several years having a blast conquering the Arban Method book and playing technical duets by the hour.. She became quite accomplished and still has my Mt Vernon Bach Strad and plays it occasionally. in an international corporation. Her husband is an accomplished musician in Nashville, playing in rock and jazz groups as a bassist. She had made all-state in Arkansas. I havnt played a lick since then except for taking a volunteer position with the Argonne Rebel Drum Corps in Great Bend as a volunteer instructor with their soprano horn line before entering the KU clinical psych program. That was the year of the Jesus Christ Superstar show. Good material. I had to drop that activity when KU called saying I had been accepted into their PhD psych program. And that I should get to Lawrence muy pronto. For the record ... I no longer have a horn and haven't touched one since the days of instructing my daughter. And, no, I could not play a lick of that old Full Razor Blues!”
I thought you might find how he developed an interest in playing Dull Razor: I will tell U a story about how I came to play "The Dull Razor Blues". When I was in 4th or 5th grade, but I think it was 4th. Anyway, my dad took me to an REL game, and I was enthralled by a soloist playing the Dull Razor fight song. Couldn't help but notice that every time it was played, the Gander crowd went wild. Including me, tho I had no idea what a "fight song" even was. Anyways, we had just moved to the Cedar Bayou area. I told my dad I wanted a horn for Christmas. We couldn't afford that, but our new next door neighbor ... Johnny Kralczek (probably misspelled.) Anyway, Johnny K gave us the loan of his cornet he had played in the Gander Band. My dad went to a music store and bought some books of dixieland music and embarked on teaching me to play songs from these books. He couldn't read a note. So he would have me play a few notes, though I was clueless about fingerings So he would mark the songs with up and down arrows to signify the melodic flow of the songs. We spent hours per day doing this, so that by the time I was in 6th grade, I had learned by this primitive method how to "read music". And I would entertain myself playing out of these Dixieland books several hrs an evening. Meanwhile, there was a popular song on radio that was called Cherry Pink and Apple blossom Time. So I spent hours a day learning to play "Cherry Pink". I think it was a Perez Prado song. So I became a Perez Prado immitator! I Can ould entertain myself for hours learning to play songs like this. But couldn't "read" music. When I matriculated to Cedar Bayou J.H. I had learned to play several dozen jazzy songs by ear. But my guiding aspiration was to some day play "the Dull Razor Blues" with the Gander Band. And I started having opportunities to do so. When I was in 8th grade, a local gentleman (whose name I regrettably don't recall) asked me to join his "band", and I jumped on the opportunity. He played organ & piano and had a "sideman" box for a rhythm section. We played gigs up and down the clubs in LaPorte, Channelview, Pasadena and South Houston. For me it was a dream opportunity. His "songbook" was heavy on the Dixieland music I had been playing by ear from memory for years. Anyhow ... That's how I eventually ended up playing Dull Razor for 3 years ... always with a few aspiring Dull Razorists getting their opportunity as well. Ahh, but I'm just reminiscing. Today I couldn't play 5 notes of "Old MacDonald"!
From Chris Foster - Class of 96. Hi Mr. Poulin, I found a bit of band trivia to share, in case you're interested in such things. (A thirty-year flashback) In the Fall of 1992 (exactly 30 years ago), the head band director Mr Peoples left shortly before the school year started. His assistant (in his first year at Lee) Jack Foos was left to run the band that year with a temporary assistant (Gary Keene).
Mr. Foos didn't plan a themed marching band show that year (like Cats, West Side Story and The Wizard of Oz---which were 93. 94, and 95 respectively). He just picked three songs and made a show out of them. I just found out recently that all 3 pieces are available to listen to on YouTube, which was very nostalgic for me, as it was my first ever marching show.
