Saturday came very close to being a perfect day for the USM student concert band performance on the front steps of Corthell Hall in Gorham. You could smell the good, cheap barbecue all the way from Upton-Hastings. The crowd was comprised mostly of local families with small children, but there were a handful of student enjoying the sunshine as well. Even the instruments glistened. Yet, whenever conductor Peter Martin commented on the nice weather, a chilly breeze would gust up and freeze everyone. But Martin persevered, delivering wonderfully clever introductions to the songs and leading the band masterfully. ?
The band began and ended their set by fulfilling their patriotic obligations, opening with the national anthem and closing with Carmen Dragon’s popular arrangement of “America the Beautiful.”
Once that was out of the way, the band moved onto Robert Sheldon’s epic “Flight of the Paisa,” a complexly layered epic with dramatic crescendos worthy of a Hollywood soundtrack. The next piece, Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue in B Major,” was much more reserved, and quite frankly, I found it a little boring. The fugue’s forceful beginning almost broke out of this, but ultimately it too was mired back into the same predictability and slowness that plagued the prelude.
The band then zoomed into the twentieth century for a three-part jazz suite. People often associate jazz with slow, smoky melodies, but the suite was full of riotous big band romps that really revived the show. It began with a high-energy jazz march and followed with a song that Martin said sounded “like Paris in the 1930’s.”? It definitely had that film noir feel. I could easily imagine flappers dancing the Charlestown to it in a scene from The Great Gatsby. The song progressed, however, into a monotonous middle that lacked the magic possessed by the opening. The final jazz selection was a totally boppy tune, with a fast beat and an insatiably danceable rhythm.
When the jazz was over, one of the saxophone players stepped up to conduct a piece that progressed slowly, rising with a growing anticipation. Just when I thought it had dissipated into a mellow melody, it suddenly broke into an exciting overdrive. The excitement continued with Alfred Reed’s “Prelude and Capriccio,” which had an interesting mixture of levity and mysterious darkness. It sounded exactly like the score to a late seventies cop drama.
The “New Colonial March” by Richard Rodgers, which came next, left something to be desired. While it showcased the band’s ability to change their feel and dynamic quickly and smoothly, it was terribly schizophrenic and ultimately felt more confusing than motivating.
The last piece was a mishmash of songs from the musical “The Sound of Music,” and was dedicated to Erik Kruzel, a local composer who died Sept. 1 on Swan Island. It was endlessly entertaining to see the children in the park sing and dance to the charming renditions of the familiar tunes. USM should feel proud of its talented band.