1975 York Mills Collegiate, North York, ON student band

Today, I viewed a 1975 video of the jazz band at York Mills Collegiate Institute where I taught from 1973-1979. I was 27 at the time of the performance on the video. They were playing Chick Corea’s “La Fiesta” arranged by trumpeter, Tony Klatka which was featured on Woody Herman’s “Giant Steps” album (yes it was vinyl) . The arrangement was so cool, I transcribed it and then presented it to the young guns at YMCI. They killed it!! These amazing teenagers sounded like 25-30 year olds. Piccolo? No problem. Soprano saxophone? No problem. Key of E (and A) concert? No problem. Up tempo 3? No problem. Names I remember from that band: Gary Boigon (tenor sax and soloist), Doug Buchanan (fender rhodes), Harry Blount (piccolo and baritone saxophone), Cathy Erwin (flugelhorn and trumpet), Janice (Jan) Dique (trumpet), Tom Cross (alto saxophone), John Johnson (alto saxophone and soprano solo), Steve Dick (drums), Marilyn Zeldin (trumpet). And then my memory fails. It was 40 years ago. In the event that anyone reads this blog and can add names, please drop me a line at paul@paulread.ca.

WOW!!

Thanks to Sheila Anderson-Massé, I can now add more names to those listed above:

trumpets: Richard Haberman, Joe Lin
trombones: Fred Lehner, Bill Meeker, Colleen Sheppard,Bryan Sher, Steve Vogler (did we have 5 trombones? Is one of these a tuba player or French horn?)
guitar: Ken Bassman
bass: Richard Stark

Students make wonderful teachers. You can take that two ways. Both are accurate.