With key new staff on board for the southern corps’ 1983 season, Spirit of Atlanta leapt up the leaderboard at the DCI World Championships in Miami, ultimately finishing with the corps’ best placement since 1980.
Spirit took the field in 1983 in a new uniform debuted during the corps’ 1982 season. Dark aiguillettes on each shoulder and a white and black striped waistband accentuated a baby-blue uniform top that prominently featured the corps’ delta logo on the front. Black pants with a double white stripe down the side of each leg and silver-accented black shakos with black plumes finished off the contemporary look.
It was a uniform that corps director Freddy Martin said complemented the corps’ personality as part of the “new, progressive south.”
“Atlanta is a very contemporary southern city,” Martin said in 1983. “The abstract ‘A’ — the geometric design on the front of our uniforms — is to demonstrate that.”
After back-to-back fourth-place finishes at the DCI World Championships in 1979 and 1980, just the third and fourth years of Spirit of Atlanta’s existence, the corps slid to ninth and twelfth places the next two years. Coming out of the 1982 DCI World Championships in Montreal with strong finishes in brass and percussion, Freddy Martin looked to shore up the visual presentation. To do this, he brought in future DCI Hall of Fame member Sal Salas who had cut his teeth as a member and instructor of the Madison Scouts.
“Sal was our major improvement,” Martin said. “He is the visual coordinator, he writes all of the drill and he coordinates all of the color guard work.”
“To have a real strong visual marching and color guard caption is something new for the Spirit of Atlanta, and something that has not been our strength in the past,” Martin added. “This year we felt like it was as strong as drums and brass.”
1983 Spirit of Atlanta
7th Place, 83.600
Spirit kicked off its 1983 production from Orange Bowl Stadium in Miami with the hard-driving “Los Hermanos De Bop.” A few bars in, the piece — written by Mark Taylor, who is known for his work with the Stan Kenton Orchestra — brought an impressive baritone and soprano duet to the stage-right 40-yard line as the brass and percussion kept the groove with the color guard’s 14-person rifle line up front.
Watch the 1983 Spirit of Atlanta on DVD
The corps slowed things down considerably for a short time with its second tune, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “Blues in the Night.” Arlen, well known for his work on the soundtrack to “The Wizard of Oz,” including the memorable “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” wrote “Blues in the Night” for a 1941 film of the same name. The popular piece became a jazz standard and is often credited as part of the “Great American Songbook.”
Primarily marched by the corps in half-time, the opening of the piece had a sultry, waltz-like feel to it that just felt right in the hands of Spirit of Atlanta.
Timpani and a cowbell picked up the tempo as the corps next brought its nine-member snare line down to the front sideline to post up with high-hat cymbals on stands. Jazzy brass riffs kept the action crisp and spirited before a short break brought a small brass ensemble down the 50-yard line with an interjecting baroque-like passage.
Brass players got into the fun of the almost out of place moment with a few ballet-like dance moves, decades before this type of choreography became commonplace in DCI competition. It was a look that played to Sal Salas’ pioneering creative approach, blurring the traditional boundaries of the brass, percussion and color guard sections in a drum corps production.
“What I’ve tried to do is feature all the sections and to take a modern art approach — make modern art — as opposed to just lines and circles,” Salas said. “I wanted a new look.”
After the short respite, the full ensemble came back in with swinging jazz including a solo by Hunter Moss, a high-note-playing Spirit of Atlanta soprano player who was a fixture with the corps for a number of years. So much so that he was invited to the celebration of DCI’s 40th anniversary in 2012 as one of the most notable drum corps soloists of all time.
A percussion feature about eight minutes and 30 seconds into the production came from Kansas’ “No One Together,” off the progressive rock band’s 1980 album, “Audio-Visions.” The front ensemble percussion handled the rapid melodic lines, as color guard members utilized atypical equipment that included yellow-colored rectangles made out of PVC pipe and circular ribboned wreaths on a stick. Performers used these implements to frame different choreographed scenes and antics, eliciting laughs from the crowd.
Spirit’s final selection returned from the corps’ 1982 production, “We Are the Reason” by contemporary Christian musician David Meece.
Starting slow to the sound of chimes in the front ensemble percussion section, a mellophone soloist established the main theme as the full ensemble began to swell playing to the backfield.
A turn and pause on the front hashmark of the football field set the brass in a company front formation stretched between the 15-yard lines and created a brief bit of anticipation before the full-force of the horn line unleashed while marching the line forward. Color guard members lined up across the back of the formation unfurled large pink banners attached to flexible poles to accent the moment visually.
Many at the time referred to “We Are the Reason” as an update to “Let It Be Me,” which served as the corps’ fan-favorite closing tune for four years straight between 1978 and 1981. It had a similar slow and building feel that set things up to bring the house down with the pure power of the Spirit of Atlanta horn line.
Spirit makes a move in Allentown
Rebounding from a 12th-place finish at the 1982 DCI World Championships, competitively, Spirit of Atlanta had a strong start to the 1983 DCI season.
After finishing several early-season events behind the Madison Scouts, Spirit managed to gain the upper hand by a point and a half when the DCI Tour headed to the DCI East competition in Allentown, Pennsylvania on July 2. On the scoresheets at J. Birney Crum Stadium, while Madison held a half-point advantage in General Effect, Spirit held the lead thanks to nearly one-point advantages in the Marching and Maneuvering, Brass and Percussion captions.
Spirit wouldn’t face the Scouts again head to head until the end of July, however, on friendly Wisconsin turf in Whitewater at the DCI Midwest Finals, the Scouts pulled ahead by more than a point.
A much-needed break at mid-season is what Spirit’s staff hoped would help push them over the top as the DCI Tour headed south for the final events of 1983.
“We got back to Atlanta, the kids spent a couple days at home, slept in their own beds, had some of mama’s good cooking, got their energy level back up and had a couple of good rehearsals at the stadium in Atlanta,” director Freddy Martin said. “All that made us a lot more comfortable with what we could accomplish going into the Championships.”
Madison held a similar lead as they did in Whitewater at the DCI South competition on August 13 in Atlanta. And while Spirit would give the Scouts a temporary scare at the DCI World Championship Semifinals the next week, pulling within four and a half tenths of a point, they ultimately finished two spots behind at the Finals. Spirit ended 1983 in seventh place with a score of 83.60 to the Madison Scouts’ 86.45 which put them in fifth.