Not true...
Friday, September 22, 2000
Bands go to war
By Donnie Snow
Clarion Ledger Staff Writer
The Sonic Boom of the South, Jackson State University’s marching band, takes on Southern University’s Human Jukebox Saturday in the Superdome in New Orleans. And by most accounts, it's going to be a smack down the size of which hasn’t been seen since Ali and Frazier but with music instead of blood, of course, these are musicians not pugilists. The Southern fans will see the light, and sound for the first time when we get there, promises Lewis Liddell, director, or more accurately, commander in chief of the Sonic Boom, and Southern’s Jukebox is gonna know about the Sonic Boom. They gonna do what they have to do, but you can be sure we're gonna do what we have to do. They think they're the best we know we’re the best. They better come ready, he says, or it'll be a blowout! Liddell has my utmost respect, says Southern’s Band Director Isaac Greggs, himself a Southern graduate. What he does is a reflection of his own personal discipline. There's always been a wholesome and clean rivalry between our bands, but I don’t really care who it is, we’re gonna be just as good for no matter who we play. I don’t get up for other people, they get up for me. When you're riding high in the saddle, you catch a lot of arrows. I ride highest in the saddle. Wait a minute this isn’t a Rockne-fueled football championship, these are marching bands. They wear plumes and stuff. Fans travel to see us much as the football team, boasts Donyale Walls, a trumpet playing psychology junior at JSU. At 20, the Detroit native has seen a few JSU-Southern face offs. When they came to Jackson last year, they stole some of our fans, reminds 21 year old Kendra Hardy, a JSU biology senior, and French horn player, from Jackson. We know how important this week is, so no one is complaining about staying late. Rehearsal hours have been extended to nearly five hours a day this past week. Some think we got blown out last year, she said. This year, we have something to prove. They may play louder than we do, but we have more musicality. We have style.
On the football field, in his crisp black uniform and snow white gloves, Liddell, a Jackson native stands like a field marshal. In the band hall he directs like Bob Knight, without the shoving. Horns up! He shouts during rehearsals. Lock it in place! Don’t breathe at the bar! Resist the temptation to breathe. (For the untrained, that’s more of that musicality stuff.) Don’t play like a little girl. You got to get aggressive! Our fans expect nothing but the best because they've seen nothing but the best, he said following a news conference announcing a visit from the United State Marine Corps Band. They've might seen some good band across the field, but they don’t compare us with those. They compare us with the best JSU bands of the past. Liddell, a JSU band member from 1963 through 1967, credits the Mississippi blues and New Orleans jazz traditions for the SWAC show style of marching, a rollercoaster style; hot and high-stepping. When the freshman show up, they don’t really know how strenuous this is or how popular we are, explains Walls, But it only takes a couple weeks for them to get so involved. Popular is right. The JSU-Southern rivalry, one of the great SWAC showdowns is finally slotted for the Superdome which seats over 70,000. Southern officials say they expect more than 50,000 to attend. And a fair amount of those will be there for the bands, most agree. I know in many instances I've lifted a defeat into victory by getting the team and the fans hyped, claims Greggs. In Mississippi and Louisiana, its very family oriented, Walls says, explaining the popularity of the marching bands. Fans are much closer to schools such as Southern and JSU. And they’re very supportive of the bands. With both football teams less than sterling so far this season, more attention might turn toward the musical tête-à -tête, but artistic fandom aside, this week is as much about being better than Southern than putting on a good show. That’s thanks to a long-ago snubbing, says Liddell, when he and Greggs were high school band directors. Liddell leading the band at a country school felt the burning tinge of condescension from Greggs, a champion city director. Liddell says he's never forgotten the slight and never will. The Southern game does pull something out of Doc, explains Walls. He and Dr. Greggs have this professional rivalry. It’s like him against Dr. Greggs. He wants to make him look bad. So much the better for the fans in the stands. When it's time to play after the game, and we pull out the marches, they should just pack up, warns Liddell with a broad smile. I've been through four band directors at Jackson State, says Greggs, chuckling, I didn’t make Southern great, it's always been great, I just took it to another level. And I don’t blame all the other directors for imitating me, because if I was somebody else, I'd imitate me.
