The DCMB Double-entendre March

Sousa wouldn't recognize it

THEY line up behind the goal line at halftime, 125 members of the finest Ivy League marching band north of Boston. Their Big Green jackets look vaguely like those worn by the Glee Club, and half the white pants are of the house- painter's variety. Yet, while the scene is decidedly different in 100,000-seat University of Michigan stadium on this Saturday afternoon, an equivalent expectant hush falls over the slightly smaller crowd in Cambridge's Soldier Field. Crackle, snap - the p.a. system's warm-up noise precedes the announcer, whose voice is pompous, arrogant, theatrical, and by now utterly familiar.

"And now. ladies and gentlemen, theDartmouth College Marching Bandpresents - The Gong Show!"

CRASH. And another irreverent, slightly irrelevant DCMB halftime show is underway. And nobody but a chosen few can understand, or even know, what went on to bring it about.

"I forgot my money!"

"My music locker is locked and I can't get into it."

Forty-five minutes later the band is on the bus to Harvard, munching Doritos and brownies to stave off Friday afternoon hunger and listening to an exasperated senior band member announce, "As a condition of our next trip, IQ tests will be administered to all band members."

"Ya muddah!" comes from a back rank.

And they're off.

The Marching Band was founded - well, nobody seems to know exactly when, but Director Donald Wendlandt reckons the band is "almost as old as Dartmouth football." As the opening words of its Harvard halftime show indicate, however, the band is anything but tradition-bound. "If you dream of precision-stepping before a creaming crowd of 200,000 fans, gilt uniform gleaming, to the accompaniment of 76 trombones, eta 1.," stated the band's freshman introductory letter this year, "well, you'd better go to Ohio State."

But then the Buckeye band has to march in formation.

"...The only band in the Ivy Leaguethat doesn't think a score is a piece ofmusic...."

The Dartmouth College Marching Band is only the fall term version of the year- round Dartmouth College Band, which changes its stripes in winter and spring to the more serious Wind Ensemble. A student directorate pretty much runs operations, from planning shows to choosing music to training new musicians in the ways of the DCMB which, according to President and Student Conductor John Jordan '78, is "to put out as high-quality a musical product as we can without sacrificing any of the fun of performing."

As Ivy League marching bands go, Dartmouth's is about par. None of the lvies goes in for the intricate formations and John Philip Sousa repertoires that mark Big Ten bands, and they really never have. "We have the capability of being as good as any other band," Jordan says. About 75 per cent of the members are extremely fine musicians. But, at a school like Dartmouth, people who would join the band are also concerned with academics and can't afford to put in the three hours a day that a band like Ohio State's does. So, we decided to opt for somewhere in the middle between a band of perfection and a band that will attract a large number of Dartmouth students."

What sets the Dartmouth band apart from the other Ivy bands? Is it the cultured pomposity of announcer Fran L'Esperance '79 or the deliberately misspelled legends ("Nale Yail") adhesive-taped to the green tuba covers? "It's our uni," grins an '81 clarinet player on the way to Harvard, referring to the Dartmouth uniform of white shirt, white slacks, white shoes and green blazer, with not a spangle in sight. "We've got the best uni of anyone in the Ivies." ("Uni" - student argot - pronounced as in "loony.")

"North of Boston," his companion adds.

"We normally devote our Harvard half-time show to dumping garbage and verbalabuse on Harvard, but since it can't bepiled any higher...."

It seems to be the DCMB's brand of humor that really sets it apart: heavy with double-entendre and geared to a Dartmouth undergraduate crowd. Emphasis of band shows on each of the three elements - music, formations, and script - has shifted slightly over the years, according to Jordan. Whereas mid-forties and fifties shows concentrated on a snappy script and song titles meant to carry jokes, later shows went in for strictly Dartmouth injokes until, Jordan says, "we realized we were excluding half of our audience. That's when we decided to go the double-entendre route, and the response has been quite good."

In accordance with an agreement of Ivy League athletic directors five years ago, the band's programs are subject to approval by a DCAC official (Alden "Whitey" Burnham, assistant director of athletics) as well as by Wendlandt. They usually render their comments in red ink on the computer print-out of the show script: "Better not," "watch it," and occasionally "NO!" Apparently, the standards of what gets presented vary somewhat from school to school. Jordan characterizes the Dartmouth "censor" as "strict but reasonable," in contrast to Yale "where there is an apparent lack of any control at all, so they can do things like moon the audience on national TV" (which happened in 1976).

What kinds of things get by the censors? "Anything that can be understood on at least two levels by the majority of the audience," Jordan explains. "Basically, any joke has to be in Dartmouth vernacular and understandable in innocuous terms. If a little kid can discern a perfectly innocent meaning from a perfectly bawdy piece of script, then we're okay." But would a little kid really let a line like "Okay, folks, now whip out your gongs for the next act..." (from the Harvard show) go by? "Well, our censors did," he answers with a wide grin. Burnham gave that line a "careful!!"

Since 1974, which is as far back as Jordan's memory goes, the band's attitude toward itself has changed. The invitation letter sent to freshmen in the fall of 1974 read, "Congratulations! You have just made the Dartmouth College Marching Band! Can you play an instrument?" Now, according to Jordan, the band feels that "anyone who isn't a musician shouldn't be in the organization. We used to have the image as just a funny, goofy group and I hope we've retained that, too."

Goofy? "Naw," replies a '78 woman mixing drinks from Jordan's portable bar in the back of the bus. "Rum punch? Gin and tonic? Bourbon and cider?"

This is, supposedly, the "best" bus of the three making the trek to Harvard. "Actually," L'Esperance confides, "we weren't supposed to take this many people down to Harvard. We were originally supposed to send half to Yale, half to Harvard. But

"An anonymous benefactor in the Alumni Office," Jordan interrupts, "made it possible for us to take the whole band to both."

"With a little subtle persuasion," L'Esperance finishes, prying Jordan's hand off his mouth.

Unlike the Harvard band, which is self supporting, or the Princeton band, which draws most of its funds from concerts and alumni donations, the DCMB is funded primarily by the Music Department, and its director (Wendlandt) is a music professor. A student directorate, half appointed by Wendlandt and half elected by the band at large, runs operations and supervises musical quality. "I think it's best to let students work with their peers," Wendlandt says. "It's good experience for everyone in the group and a way of developing leadership in the band. Of course," he adds, "everything that's done has to be with my approval."

That doesn't seem to be a problem, as the DCMB isn't interested in becoming controversial. An incident in the fall of 1975, when a band member, overcome by drink, got sick on the field during a halftime performance led to stern rebuke. Some show ideas, such as a "Salute To ROTC" or a "Show-in-Bad-Taste Show," were axed because, according to Jordan, "We're there to entertain people, not to be political or offend them."

Sometimes, however, controversy has found its way to the band whether Jordan likes it or not. The issue of the Indian symbol at football games involved the band because fans began to follow the playing of "As the Backs go Tearing By/Glory to Dartmouth" with the Indian cheer every time it was played. "When we realized this, and when the Native American Council expressed its concern to us, we took the song out of our repertoire," Jordan says. "Then it got so that every song was followed by the Indian cheer, and that's when I said the hell with it, we can't do anything about it, and it's ridiculous to eliminate our entire repertoire of Dartmouth songs."

"We'll be back after this brief announcement...attention all fans. If youwant a good time, call 495-2000 and askfor Derek...."

The long road to showtime begins in the band office Sunday evening before the next Saturday's game (this year, the DCMB played at every Dartmouth home game and all away games except Columbia and B.U.). There, in the "bowels of the Hop," the show planning committee (chaired by Bill Gottesman '79 and including most of the student directorate) cooks up a five-toten-minute half-time show around a central theme: "The Gong Show" for Harvard, "DCMB's Wide World of Punting" for Cornell. "You're lucky you didn't come to one of those show-planning sessions," one '79 band member says in the Harvard bus. "That's the band at its worst."

"No it isn't," pipes up an '80. "It's the best!"

"Worst!"

"Best!"

"Well," says the '79, conceding defeat, "there's really very little difference. ..."

Once a script has taken shape - usually small amounts of prose wrapped around four to five songs - and is approved by Burnham and Wendlandt, practice begins in two phases: musical and marching. Jordan, as student conductor, a position he has held for three of his four years with the band, is responsible for the musical quality of the shows. He rehearses his players a grand total of four hours per week, and the atmosphere in Hartman Rehearsal Hall is like that of high-school orchestra practice - plus a few decibels. "I want to hear the clarinets there at letter B," he screams above the tuning-up din to the Harvard show Spanish number, "Macarena." "I know you're out there." Perhaps the clarinets are too busy watching L'Esperance doing a mock flamenco dance behind Jordan's back.

Once practice is concluded to Jordan's satisfaction ("You guys sound great really . . . competent"), the troops move out for practice on Memorial Field in formations and marching. Drillmasters Charlie Sawyer '80 and Bruce Smoller '79, with photostated diagrams in hand, run about positioning flutes and tubas into the Harvard show formations: a bull pen, a glass with straw, a giant piano. "That looks awful" shouts L'Esperance from his top-row lookout. "Straighten out the glass a little bit - it looks drunk." "That can be arranged," replies Smoller.

The diagrams, however, are always open to question and innovation. "JJ, we ought to bow after 'Alley Cat,' " a trumpet player suggests to Jordan. "Fine," he says after reflecting a few seconds. "Everyone bow at the end of 'Alley Cat' - and lift up the back of your jackets slightly." Loud guffaws. "Whaddaya mean, slightly?" roars one '78. They try it. Everyone lifts his jacket a lot. "Okay, okay, try it again. And do it with some class this time." They try it again, and the jackets go up only slightly.

"And now, folks. ..." The rest of theline is drowned in the band's final chordsand the bad p.a. "They always turn itdown for the visiting band announcer,"L'Esperance says. "Damn."

Boston and the lovely Sonesta Hotel are in sight now, and the stories of past band trips are flying thick and fast: the Harvard game two years ago ("I'm surprised the same hotel is having us back!" say several members with a laugh), the combined Penn-New York City trip and a wild night in the Big Apple, playing "Men of Dartmouth" in Harvard Yard at 8 a.m. "We're a traveling circus!" boasts one '81. "That's why I joined."

"That's why I've stuck it out for four years," Ken Landau '78 says. "It's just a lot of fun. The trips are the best part of the whole experience, but the whole experience is pretty damn good, too."

"But I've gotten good comments about the music, too," Jordan says. "I've had more people come up to me and say, 'What happened? The band sounds really great this year!' "

"It's all the clarinets and flutes," a '79 woman flutist says.

"That's been one effect of coeducation on the band," Jordan says with a slight leer. "There are certainly a lot more clarinets and flutes."

"Drink, sexist," shoots back a '78 woman - not a member of the band.

"Ya muddah," counters Jordan.

"Ladies and gentlemen ..." throws in L'Esperance in his announcer's voice.

And we're off.

Anne Bagamery '78, one of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE'S undergraduate editors, haswatched the band in action for four years- and feels none the worse for it.