Paid more attention than a #trombone player usually would to the #woodwinds since Dad played clarinet and was always so excited to sing the #clarinet part, most notably the ones in the Trio strain of #SempreFidelis: he’d use his #falsetto as we drove to the Spencer farm (about an hour in the car which he never had trouble filling), and he’d sing “skee-a-ree, skee-a-ree, skee-a-reet-ski, skee-a-ree, skee-a-ree, skee-a-reet-ski,” often encouraging one of us to do the #sousaphone part and another to do the main melody... I do love Sousa marches, too, but he was almost overly enthusiastic. He had the parts he was interested in memorized so I don’t know how often he listened to this particular record, which is from his and Mom’s collection. Maybe some, because it has seen some wear. #Mancini and #Sousa make an excellent match, with those Mancini early sixties studio cats all witty and tight and uptempo and precise with their phrasing and stuff, the #piccolo in #starsandstripes mixed way up front so you can really hear how precise and complex a part it is. #washingtonpost is still my favorite, but Sousa was like a Beatle, making even the secondary bits fun and poppy and people-pleasing. Tonight I especially enjoyed the first strain of #thethunderer because it’s like the woodwinds were finally given this big feature right off the bat but you can just feel all the other instruments straining like dogs on leashes to get to their parts. Sousa really managed to give every instrument a part that they could pretend was the best part, a melody or countermelody or harmony or rhythmic answer to the melody or something in the next strain if there’s nothing there. Maybe in a parade it meant there was never a boring section passing where the parade-goer was standing. #ripDad #vinyl #treadmillsoundtrack #parentsvinylcollection #hifi #checkoutthatbatonlady (at Noblesville, Indiana)
