Thursday, August 09, 2007

Second in a series, my homage to football halftime shows, thanks to Portland's Rose Festival, 2007

Performing second at the Concert in the Park, the Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers. I first heard them last summer as they paraded up Division as part of the Clinton/Division Street Parade. I agree wholeheartedly with this quote I found online in the Oct. 11, 2005, Portland Tribune: Drummer Roger Pease described an e-mail he got from then-prospective tenor drum player Casey Scott. Scott lived in an apartment on the Starlight Parade route. She heard the band coming down the street and went to the window to see the source of the racket. Pease paraphrases her e-mail: “ ‘All of a sudden I hear way off in the distance, something like a sonic disturbance, and I knew then why all throughout history, militaries have used drums to signal their approach, because hearing that you realize that there is nothing--nothing--an enemy could do.’”



Here's a bit I found at www.lastregiment.com: The Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers was founded in 1998 in Portland Oregon by acclaimed Long Beach drummer Greg Odell. From traditional syncopation to funky street beats, marching rhythms to military cadences, the Last Regiment moves feet and stops hearts at parades, races, awareness walks, sports venues and backyard barbeques.


If you've developed a hankering to hear syncopated drumming, go to www.lastregiment.com and partake of their mp3. If it doesn't get you at the very least bobbing and rocking in your chair, have someone take your pulse right away!

No comments: