Spotlight of the Week: 2010 Madison Scouts

Madison Scouts’ 2010 production was predicated on one core tenet of the corps’ historic rallying cry: Pleasing the crowd.

Sure, it was loud, and proud, too. But the Madison corps came out in 2010 with the goal of digging deep into their popular roots to craft a production that would light up audiences across the DCI Tour.

“Certainly the programs we had in the ‘70s have been universally recognized as among the most entertaining,” DCI Hall of Fame member and former Madison Scouts executive director Bill Howard said during the summer of 2010. “It’s a pleasure for me to see that we’re coming back to entertaining drum corps.”

And it worked. Madison Scouts’ 2010 production — a nameless program which featured historic Madison Scouts musical and visual staples — was a fan-favorite and helped the corps regain competitive standing among DCI’s Top 10.

 2010 Madison Scouts
10th Place • 88.950

Prior to 2010, Madison Scouts spent the majority of the 21st century’s early years shuffling through various “new” uniform looks, each featuring a mixture of brighter green, white, and red accents.

As such, the corps’ 2010 uniform choice — like many other aspects of its design — was a return the past and specifically the corps’ Boy Scout origins. Madison donned a rich, dark green, with a black cross-sash and its trademark white headgear.

“We’re returning to our roots,” Madison Scouts director Chris Komnick said in an interview during the 2010 DCI World Championship Prelims. “Our roots are about entertaining the audience. I think that’s what we accomplished this year; that’s what we’re going to keep doing.”

Much like its goal, the corps’ repertoire was simple. It featured just two classic pieces of music: George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Richard Rogers’ “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” The two, as one familiar with each would expect, combined to generate an up-tempo, jazzy energy from start-to-finish of Madison Scouts’ 2010 production.

The show opened, simply, with Madison Scouts’ calling card — loud. The corps didn’t have any build-up to its initial impact; its first note was a strong, trilled chord from the horn line, supported by piercing buzz rolls from the battery, all leading into a pure and powerful unison brass melody.

Madison Scouts’s opening section lasted just 30 seconds or so, but made a statement as to the production’s simplified, high-energy and “purist” drum corps nature.

Percussion was immediately on display following the opening moments, utilizing unique, light tambers to set the tone for a grooving section of brass features. The tempo didn’t remain speedy for long, as Scouts’ rendition of “Slaughter” slowed into the piece’s more soulful, sultry solo movement.

“Slaughter,” which filled the first one-third-or-so of Madison Scouts’ program, came to a close with an almost closer-esque musical and visual design.

From there, approximately the final seven minutes of the show were devoted to Gershwin’s iconic rhapsody. In keeping with the meaning of the term, rhapsody, those seven minutes were a roller coaster of feelings, tones and tempos. Madison Scouts executed that roller coaster well, keeping the audience engaged through the many hills and valleys of the erratic piece of music.

The “Rhapsody” movement began just as its source music begins, with a featured trumpeter playing Gershwin’s iconic introductory solo, originally written for clarinet.

 

If Madison Scouts’ 2010 production wasn’t lacking for one thing, it was memorable soloists. Throughout the rises and falls of its rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue,” various soloists and small groupings of brass instruments kept the piece moving with well-executed feature sections.

After a rich and expressive ballad movement, the production transitioned into its high-octane percussion feature, which concluded with — following other impressive passages — Scouts’ full percussion ensemble playing, approximately, as loud as it possibly could.

Drum major John Lee, when asked about the corps’ favorite moment to perform during a midseason interview, referenced the percussion-heavy movement.

“Our second drum feature in ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ there’s just so much going on,’” Lee said. “The focus, of course, is the drum line, center stage, right in front. But in the back… we have the horn line just dancing their butts off. The crowd goes nuts, and I know that we enjoy performing it, too.”

From there, Madison went into a final push rife with classic Madison Scouts energy. Building dynamics and tempos led to the reprise of arguably the most notable of many melodies in Gershwin’s rhapsody, followed by the show’s energetic conclusion.

Said conclusion included intense drill movements, driving, powerful music, and a trio of screaming trumpet soloists positioned on scaffolding along the front sideline, just off the 50-yard-line to side one.

And of course — arguably, most importantly — it featured loud, it featured proud, and it featured a pleased crowd.

“It’s critical,” Komnick said of generating audience energy and enjoyment. “That’s what motivates the corps out there. With a show like that, they’re given a great vehicle to do it with.”

 

Trending upward

Madison Scouts’ 2010 season was a competitive revelation, as the corps rose from 15th place to 10th place and was arguably the biggest “mover and shaker,” competitively-speaking, of the summer.

In the three previous summers, the Madison corps had taken 12th place once, 2008, and 15th place twice — 2007 and 2009 — after earning Top 10 placements every year from 2003 to 2006. 2008 saw Madison Scouts sneak into the Top 12 with a cushion of just 0.425 separating the corps from the 13th-place Crossmen at the finalist cutoff point.

2010 featured not only a major jump in final placement for Madison Scouts; the corps’ score skyrocketed, as well. 88.950 was an increase of 6.55 points from 2009’s final output, and was Madison’s highest final number since 2005. 2010 would eventually go down as Madison Scouts’ second-highest-scoring year of the 2010s.

Madison Scouts spent most of the 2010 season hot on the heels of Boston Crusaders and Blue Knights; the corps ended up passing its Denver-based counterpart, while finishing just 0.40 points behind the Boston corps at season’s end.

Ultimately, Madison Scouts found competitive strengths in General Effect — a caption in which the corps earned ninth place — and color guard, where it finished among the Top 8.

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