2003 Crossmen | "Colors"
9th Place, 86.900
With an auditory palette of upbeat feel-good jazz tunes, Crossmen flooded Orlando’s Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium with all the hues of the rainbow during their fittingly-named 2003 production, “Colors.”
Leaving audience members guessing as to what they’d see visually with a show title like “Colors,” the corps took the field in their customary uniforms featuring black pants and shoes with a black and gray top trimmed with a silver-sequined sash and red detailing that included the corps’ trademark Maltese cross on the left chest.
With the brass and percussion sections facing backfield creating a blank black canvas and color guard performers in low-key cream-colored jumpsuits, it was the absence of color in the first 30 seconds that gave way to one of the most striking visual moments of the entire production.
After a mellophone soloist kicked off the show with the opening strains of the Academy Award-winning theme to the “Wizard of Oz,” “Over the Rainbow,” the rest of the corps gradually marched their way still facing to the back into an arc formation.
From there, a timpani roll in the front ensemble percussion section created a moment of anticipation as the brass made a turn to the front and entered with a triumphant statement of the main “Over the Rainbow” melody. At the same time, color guard members who had formed a parallel arc in front of the brass each pulled up six-foot long fabric swatches in rainbow sequence—Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet—to add a visual exclamation point to the moment before the tune wound down to its conclusion.
The corps didn’t miss a beat, however, immediately segueing into “Welcome to the St. James Club” by Russ Freeman of the American contemporary jazz group The Rippingtons. Coincidentally as a perfect transition from the corps’ rainbow-inspired opener, the ensemble is known for having a number of its songs featured as part of the Weather Channel’s “Local on the 8s” segments in the early 2000s. Color guard members added pigment to the driving piece by putting on green-sleeved tops at the top of the tune and utilizing flags featuring various green hues.
A brief percussion interlude three quarters of the way into the two-and-a-half-minute segment allowed the members of the horn line to march through a series of formations that ended in the corps’ Maltese cross on the 50-yard line.
As the color guard made another costume change—this time wearing purple sashes on top of their base ensemble—the front ensemble percussion section helped take the corps into jazz legend Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk.” The classic odd-metered composition is one that had been weaved into many different corps’ productions all the way back to the late 1960s, and interestingly for the 2003 Crossmen, it was also performed as part of the Blue Devils’ World Championship-winning production the same year.
With the front ensemble carrying the melody, the horn line retreated to the back corner of stage right, before they began to make their way back forward with a number of choreographed movements. The tenor and snare drummers offered a short percussion break before the front ensemble picked up the melody again.
Emulating the magic Brubeck created with saxophonist Paul Desmond in the original piece, the brass section made its reentry adding soft and sultry interjections against the main melody played by the front ensemble before a huge crescendo led to a rousing shout chorus that brought the piece to a finish with some high-velocity kaleidoscopic drill formations.
Transitioning into the final tune, “Count Bubba” from the 2001 debut album of jazz band leader Gordon Goodwin and his 18-piece Big Phat Band, color guard members made their last costume change to an orange sash that wrapped around the waist and fell down each performer’s left leg as a sort of half skirt.
Described by sheet music distributor J.W. Pepper as “a monster of a swinger,” “Count Bubba” gave the brass section ample opportunity to shine. Of particular note is a trumpet soli where the accompanying bass drummers unhooked their drums and took them down to the field to thump out the underlying beat.
It was the percussion section that provided the setup to drive the piece home, as corps members wheeled out three racks of cymbals and tom-toms centered on the 50-yard line that snare drummers played while on the move.
The horn line ran toward the 50-yard line in a parallelogram formation before stopping on a dime for a “park-and-blow” outburst that the color guard accentuated by flooding the field with flags featuring every color of the rainbow.
On the move again, the horn line snuck in a musical quote from “Birdland” a favorite of the corps’ that was previously performed in 1996, 1997 and 2000. The entire audience came to their feet as the corps pushed toward the front sideline blasting a final note for an enthralling 15 seconds that felt like it could last an eternity.
Clash with Crown
Traveling nearly all summer with Carolina Crown from contest to contest, Crossmen faced the South Carolina corps a total of 23 times on the 2003 Drum Corps International Tour.
Crossmen held an advantage on Crown at the first 20 shows, including a sizeable 1.6-point lead at the DCI Eastern Classic in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which fell the week prior to the DCI World Championships in Orlando.
As corps made their way south to humid and rainy Central Florida, Carolina Crown managed to turn the tables on the Crossmen as World Championship action got underway at the Quarterfinals competition. Crown certainly made a statement after putting up more than a half a point lead (0.650) in the first day of the three-event series.
Further emphasizing that the position change was no fluke, Crown managed stay ahead in the Semifinals competition a day later, holding steady with a 0.600-point lead, 88.350 to Crossmen’s 87.750.
Finals night, however, became the game changer for the Crossmen. Though Carolina Crown held a 0.600-point lead in the general effect caption and 0.950 lead in visual, Crossmen’s strong 1.8-point advantage in music helped erase Crown’s gains in the other two captions to slip ahead by a quarter of a point.
Crossmen’s ninth-place finish in 2003 stands as the corps’ best placement in the last 16 years.
2003 DCI World Championship Finals awards ceremony