By Dave Babbitt – Special to the Sydenham Current
Of all the rewards I’ve enjoyed in my musical life, it actually isn’t the music, but the people that have come into my life.
This week I’d like to introduce readers to one of my most recent acquaintances and one of our newest Wallaceburg Concert Band members.
W. John MacFadden hails from Petrolia and has been with us for approximately a year now, playing in our trumpet section.
John initially grew up in the country outside of Stratford. His father was a big fan of band tattoo’s and when he was 7, his dad took him to the Tavistock Tattoo which featured Pipe Bands, a local Community marching Band, and a few Drum Corps.
His father went to hear the pipe bands, but when the drum corps began to play, John was mesmerized!
His dad was hoping that John would take-up the bagpipes, but John had no interest. He was smitten with the horns and wanted to play the trumpet.
His 3 older siblings had been exposed to music lessons with disastrous results, so his parents weren’t expecting much from John either, but it was obvious to them that he had a sincere interest in music that his siblings lacked.
But there were no school music programs available to him at the time.
While living in the country near Embro, his father encouraged him to join the Stratford Boys Band, which rehearsed just down the street from where he worked.
When his father wasn’t sitting beside him as he practiced, John would practice outdoors by himself, much to the chagrin of the neighbours.
In time, his father found an instructor who was willing to provide him with private lessons, but after about 6 months, his newfound teacher passed away.
In the meantime, John and his father attended Drum Corps competitions as spectators and became enamoured with the incredible skills and performance standards of the Toronto Optimist Corps, which became the goal of any self-respecting Drum Corps musician in Canada.
While in attendance at a competition on a very hot summer day, the musicians began succumbing to the intense heat and his father left him to help in the First Aid tent as he was trained in that area.
Shortly after his father left, the London Midlanders Drum and Bugle Corps (from the London-Woodstock area) took to the field and John immediately loved them based strictly on their purple, white, and gold uniforms, the same colours as the Stratford Boys Band.
While his dad was busy in the First Aid tent, he made his way down to meet anyone from the band he could talk to and said, “I want to join”, not understanding just how far apart London and Stratford were, nor the financial strain that would put on his family.
He was accepted into the Corps, and his parents supported him in his weekly trips to rehearsals in London.
Much like the parents of kids involved in minor sports, his parents became very involved in the Corps, with his father eventually taking on roles of Equipment Manager, Business Manager, and eventually Corps Director.
The London Midlanders became a musical force to be reconned with and in 1969, were crowned both Ontario and National Champions and retained those titles through the 1970 season.
In 1970, the Midlanders became the first Canadian Corps to take a shot at the Drum and Bugle competitions in the US (eventually becoming known as DCI or Drum Corps International), which is huge across the US.
The band had to raise significant funds to go, and this unknown and tiny, by comparison, Drum and Bugle Corps from Canada swept into the US Open competition in Marion, Ohio for the first time … and won!
This encouraged them to enter the World Championships a few weeks later in Boston, Mass., where they won again. They became the first and only Corps (to this day) ever to win both in the same year!
As I mentioned earlier, the Toronto Optimists were the natural “next step” for members from the Midlanders, as they were being taught by staff from the Optimists. However, De La Salle (a high-level Junior A competitor to the Optimists and associated with the private school of the same name) were well aware of John and his lead trumpet chops and set out to attract him to their program, which as John put it, was considered “the dark side”.
John joined the De La Salle Corps and became their prime soloist, playing extremely difficult charts such as Buddy Rich’s well known “Channel One Suite”.
John had been winning Provincial and National individual (solo and small ensembles) competitions for years and went on to successfully enter some individual contests in the US playing the Mellophone, earning a name for himself and catching the attention of California’s Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps, and was offered a position with the Corps in 1974.
Unfortunately, John’s father and biggest supporter suffered two major heart attacks, so John declined the offer to stay close to his father.
In 1975, De La Salle merged with another Corps and became known as the Oakland Crusaders, which to this day only welcomes the best of the best musicians from across Canada.
The Drum and Bugle world only allows musicians to play up to the age of 21, eventually closing the door to their participation.
A few years ago, several of our WCB members attended a DCI competition at Ford Field in Detroit and it was an incredible, eye-opening experience!
Each Corps develops a program that they present every week in a 90-day season and get marked by many judges who base marks on musicianship, showmanship, musical abilities, the difficulty of the program, etc. In the old days, they would deduct tenths of a point for every infraction, including something as simple as turning one’s head at the wrong angle.
The goal is perfection. The musicians are mostly music majors from the greatest music schools across America and are as professional in ability as anyone.
DCI is big business and musicians pay to belong to a Corps and as an example, the Blue Coats based in Canton, Ohio spend 2.5–3 million over the 90-day season!
Readers should go to YouTube and watch something as mundane as a warm-up. They are insanely good!
In the mid-80’s, John was recruited to return and help with Toronto’s Oakland Crusaders Drum Corps and went on to write the music for their entire show in 1987, eventually becoming Corps Director for a few years.
Self-taught, John began writing and arranging music at the age of 15 when, as he says, he “figured out the mathematics of music” and has written a few scores that our WCB has played.
John had always had jobs in the pizza business and after his stint with Oakland, was recruited by Little Ceasar’s Pizza to write software for them, taking him to the US for several years.
In 2011, the Midlanders Alumnus hosted some Drum Corps shows in London and felt that they should reach out to Western University music students.
They also invited Al Chez (former trumpeter with The World’s Most Dangerous Band on the David Letterman Show, Tower of Power, Bon Jovi, etc.) as their guest artist who was involved in Drum Corps back when John was.
DCI Corps are always well aware of who the hot players are in each others’ corps and Al and John were long recognized as featured soloists in their respectful Corps, a bond that John and Al share to this day.
Finally meeting, Al challenged John to pick-up his horn once again, which he did and has been playing off and on with several groups ever since.
John’s involvement in these Drum Corps events caught the attention of Western officials who asked him to apply to take control of the Western Marching Band.
In John’s words, the Marching Band was nothing more than a “beer band” that was in the process of being taken over by the Phys Ed Department so they could have a marching band at their football games and parades. Serious Music Major students were instructed not to become involved with the Marching Band.
In short, John was awarded the position and within a few years, turned the program around into a respected musical aggregation.
When John was invited to our WCB a year ago by a mutual friend, he was entering into a new experience as he had never played in a concert band, just Marching Bands and Drum Corps.
He wasn’t sure if he was going to like the experience or even stay, but stay he has and we have become great friends. John has become a great asset to both our band’s trumpet section and as a resource for me as Music Director.
I count us as extremely fortunate to attract a musician with John’s pedigree, experience, and trumpet chops. And he’s a wonderful human being, now a part of my world.
