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The Azle High School Marching Green Pride Band put on its “best performance yet” last Saturday at UIL Region Marching Contest in Denton.
The show earned straight 1s from three judges and put the band in position to earn a trip to the State UIL Marching Contest with a top performance this Saturday in Odessa.
Director Ross Grant, in his seventh year in Azle, thanked the 220-member band and parents, the hard-working Band Boosters along with principal Laura Bynum and school district administrators for their support during a rain-soaked, flu-plagued fall. “It’s been a record-breaking challenge,” he said. “We still have some kids fighting the flu, in and out of school – we even have a director right now who’s out with the flu – but it’s not as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago.” The young band has risen to the occasion, however.
“I think they’re pretty balanced right now,” Grant said. “They play pretty well, they march pretty well, the guard is doing well, the drums are doing well, the soloists are doing well. There’s about half a dozen elements like that. “It’s a young group and we’re still working on all this, but there are no glaring deficiencies.” The initial round of Regional contests eliminates roughly half of the state’s 247 4A bands. Of the ones remaining, one out of every four will qualify for state. “We really need a great ‘home crowd’ in Odessa,” said trumpet section leader Ryan Potts. “Azle will be one of the schools to travel the farthest, and we need to show the judges how much support there is for our group.” The judges at Regional had glowing praise for the MGP. “Really nice full band sounds with good balance and intonation,” judge John Young said. “Great phrasing! Strong marching fundamentals; great drill and music – it works well!” Judge Arnie Lawson added, “Very good woodwind exposure, and a really entertaining show that was well-performed. Great use of dynamics and various tempi and velocity.” Judge Brian Merrill wrote, “Excellent sounds throughout the band – lots of great players! You have a very engaging show. Great marching basics! Beautiful posture; students march with confidence. Great show!” Azle’s show, titled “If the Shoe Fits” is born out of the concept that shoes can not only be a thread for a musical presentation – they can be a metaphor for life. Grant said some “iconic” shoe books were written in the 1940s by Noel Streetfield, one of which was referred to in the movie You’ve Got Mail as Meg Ryan is trying to save her mother’s children’s bookstore. “A customer comes in and says ‘My mother read me this book’ called Ballet Shoes,” Grant said. “That’s a real book. It was a little ahead of its time – it was about empowering little girls to have a dream and pursue it, told kind of through a shoe metaphor – I’m going to have these dancing shoes, these running shoes, whatever.” So the directors pieced together three types of shoes and the music and marching to go with them. “With running shoes, we use a piece of music called ‘Wind Sprints’ that’s very fast,” Grant said. “The idea is a little kid who gets new running shoes and dreams of winning the Olympics. She puts them on and she’s tearing around the band, breaking the tape a the finish line.” The second movement is ballet shoes, starting with a girl opening a box of ballet shoes. Then she is “kind of replaced by the dancer in her head” Grant said, while the band plays the great American ballet “Appalachian Spring”. The last movement is about party shoes, to the Benny Goodman, big-band era tune “Sing, Sing, Sing!” “This is a song that people just tore up the dance floor to,” Grant said. “It was a ‘killer-diller’ – meaning a tune that brought the house down. In fact, it was number two in the Top 10 in 1942 or thereabouts – one of highest-rated all instrumental tuns ever.” To make it to Odessa, the band will have to skip this Friday’s halftime show at the Azle-Saginaw football game. Band members will board buses Friday afternoon and stop to rehearse on the artificial turf at Cisco College before going to their hotel in Odessa. They will rehearse again on Saturday morning in Midland, also on artificial turf, before heading to Odessa’s Ratliff Stadium for a 2:15 performance in the prelims. A top 10 ranking and an appearance in the finals will allow them to leave Odessa by around 9:30 p.m. and arrive back in Azle by about 3 a.m. Texas has 28 UIL regions and seven areas. Azle’s area includes four regions that stretch from Fort Worth to Amarillo to El Paso. All 4A bands that earn 1st division ratings at their regional contests advance to the Area contest. With 20 bands at Azle’s Area contest, four will advance to state, which will be held at San Antonio’s Alamodome Nov. 2-3. Two years ago, the last time 4A bands were able to compete all the way to the state level, Azle finished as the top 4A band in the Area contest and was 13th at State. In Saturday’s prelims, Azle will compete with Denton, Canyon Randall, Wichita Falls Rider, El Paso Del Valle, Lubbock Frenship, Brewer, Denton Guyer, Plainview, Saginaw, San Angelo Lakeview, Canyon, El Paso Mountain View, Lubbock Cooper, El Paso Riverside, Denton Ryan, Wichita Falls High, Boswell, Springtown and Big Spring. To get to Odessa’s Ratliff Stadium, take I-20 West to Odessa, then exit Loop 388 and go north. Exit on Yukon Road and go west to the stadium. Spectator admission to the contest is $5 for adults and $3 for non-performing students. Dr. Grant even sent out an email coaching those planning to be in the stands Saturday. |
