Drumbeats and Song

Any cause for alarm Friday night at Symphony Hall disappeared as soon as a top balcony listener stood up, cupped his hands, and shouted for "Wintergreen." The Band had started off in a rather unpromising fashion, with a Suite by Holst and a piece by Vaughn Williams that seemed to suit the concert hall more than it did the players. But the call for "Wintergreen" showed that the audience still had faith in the Red Coats, and thought better of Stadium music than of symphony-type arrangements.

Such convictions soon proved correct. As soon as the Band sounded off on the Brown medley, they hit their stride and many aisle-sitters kept craning their necks to see when the big drum would roll down past them to the stage. The big drum didn't appear, but the especially sonorous piping of the clarinets during the Brown number set the stage for a bear that seemed likely to pop out through the curtains at any minute and shuffle up to the podium. In spite of the ten sousaphones looming up at the back of the stage, the Brown number was n ever once heavy--the beat was always sprightly, and the drums well articulated.

At the end of the Brown medley, the composer Jack Finnegan '46 stood up took a bow. He stood up twice more during the concert, each time for better cause, for his Columbia and Yale Medleys were every bit as good as they sounded the days of the games. Soon after the Yale Medley, the Band broke down and played "Wintergreen" and the man in the second balcony, who had been calling for it all evening, stood up and bowed too.

The central part of the program suffered, for the Band was off the stage, and except for a brief triumph of the Hungry Five, a small combo that combined um-pahs with lumps and grinds things were pretty spotty. The Krokodiloes did well with "You Tell Her, I Stutter,: and "How'm I Doin'" was very good, partly because of the dancing of Mildred Blacklock. She was the high spot of the choral numbers: a consistently skillful dancer who adapted herself especially well to the cramped stage. The Cliff-Riffs of Radcliffe also sang; they were not cramped by the stage, but it was hard to see just how they contributed to the 70th Anniversary Benefit. But the Annex wasn't forgotten when the Riffs left the stage, for the final number of the Band was "Radcliffe, Now We Rise to Greet Thee," and the rest of the audience stood up and cheered. Even "Wintergreen" was forgotten in the applause.