I had forgotten they played that as a full corps in 2011! Awesome. Thank you for sharing :) Quick story: The first year of Lezghinka was 1978, I was #1 bass. The first run through where we put that together with the horns on the field was at a camp in Salinas, CA, south of Santa Clara. Wasn’t a full run through, we were just running Lezghinka. After we finished, they let us relax and we were all looking at each other -horns AND drums…the lead bari’s were right behind me-and we all had chills, eyes bugged out, like, “WTF was THAT?” That tune and arrangement was awesome from the drop. Best drum solo of the Fred/Ralph era. By far…
Way too many ticks. I like the solo but the ticks were glaringly obvious. More time on polishing and working these out would have yielded a higher placing.
Sadly, in 2022, the 50th Anniversary of DCI, the braintrust behind the organization decided to quietly eliminate the I&E completion altogether. Thanks to Keelan and so many other Blue Devil drummers who kept the tradition alive for as long as they could. If not for Scott Johnson, the Individual compeition would've likely died long ago.
