Sound Advice

There is a moment in the Rose Parade so memorable that band director Don Jaramillo has a name for it. He calls it “The Corner.”

Jaramillo and his 240-member Etiwanda High School Marching Eagles Band took to the streets of Pasadena in 1996, and after a week of rehearsals--including 25 miles of “road work” to prepare for the 5.5-mile parade route--it finally came time to make the crucial turn from South Orange Grove Boulevard onto Colorado Boulevard.

“Wow,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Rancho Cucamonga, speaking in reverent tones as flutes and tubas sounded in the nearby band room.

It’s a moment the 190-member Thousand Oaks High School band and color-guard unit, chosen to represent Southern California in the New Year’s Day parade next year, can look forward to, Jaramillo said.

“First you see a couple of bodies, and you can hear the murmur of the crowd and the other bands playing in front of you. Then you hit Colorado Boulevard.

“You come out onto the street next to the Norton Simon Museum, and you can see all the way down to the first turn, about three miles away.”

Jaramillo pauses as he reflects on that sunny day in January.

“There’s a point where none of it seems real. All you see is a sea of people. It’s nothing but bodies in bleachers,” Jaramillo said, pausing once more. “It seems like it goes forever.”

Jaramillo and other band directors who have marched in the parade say getting ready for the event often means raising lots of money, juggling student schedules, and making sure that all-important VCR is ready to record it all.

But the key is being physically prepared.

When the parade was over, Jaramillo realized he had made one major miscalculation.

“We didn’t train enough,” he said. “We did maybe 20 to 25 miles of road work, and I think we could have increased that by at least 50%. You just don’t understand how tough the Rose Parade is on a marching band.”

Thousand Oaks Lancer band director Bill Hoehne said he plans to institute a strict schedule of pre-parade training as the holiday season approaches.

“We’re going to carefully schedule special conditioning sessions that are designed to enhance endurance,” Hoehne said. “Other than that, I’m not sure what else we can do.” Jaramillo’s band members woke up at 4:30 a.m. the day of the parade and were bused into Pasadena, about a 40-minute drive. They were dropped off near the parade route in full uniform, and waited about 30 minutes to start their march.

Hoehne said he may choose to bus the Lancer band in, too. “We can get there in 45 minutes, so it may be feasible to have a 3 or 4 a.m. meeting time in Thousand Oaks on the 1st.”

The Etiwanda band didn’t have to raise a dime for its parade day, Jaramillo said, because the school district kicked in to cover transportation costs and the Marching Eagles had already been furnished with new uniforms that fall.

Hoehne said there hasn’t been any calculation yet on how much the Lancers may raise for the parade trip, but he has indicated that some new tubas, and possibly new uniforms, may be needed.

Tournament of Roses spokeswoman Nancy Atkinson said officials recommend a per-person allowance of $900 for the parade.

“But, obviously, bands that are coming from around Southern California won’t have to raise that much,” she said. “In many cases, these bands are spending more to go to field competitions in the fall than they spend to march in the Rose Parade.”

Arcadia High, last year’s local entry, did not raise funds for the parade, said band director Tom Landes. The 345-member band left about an hour and a half before the parade’s 8 a.m. start and shot right into Pasadena on Interstate 210.

“We didn’t have to do anything except get off the bus on a closed-off section of the freeway and march up the onramp to the staging area. It was very well organized,” he said.

A common theme in the Rose Parade recollections of band directors is the professionalism of the Tournament of Roses staff.

“On Parade Day, it’s like a well-oiled machine,” said Joe Hooten, director of the Tate High School Aggie “Showband of the South” from Gonzalez, Fla., about seven miles north of Pensacola. His band raised $450,000 through car washes and school-sponsored merchandise sales to pay for its 1996 Rose Parade trip.

The band arrived in the Southland on Dec. 29, booked hotel rooms in Long Beach and took a trip to San Diego two days before the parade. The Aggie band was bused to the drop-off site early in the morning on New Year’s Day, and when the moment came, it all went off like clockwork, Hooten said.

“We only had about seven or eight minutes to get off the bus and get in line,” Hooten said, “but there wasn’t one problem. You’re so informed ahead of time, there’s virtually no chance of anything going wrong.”

Atkinson said band directors are briefed a few days before the parade on procedure, and all bands are sent a handbook telling them where to set up and what to expect along the route, including where tournament officials will be waiting to care for marchers who may feel ill.

None of Hooten’s 349 charges dropped out of the parade that day two years ago, but Etiwanda High lost four members to exhaustion.

“It happens,” Jaramillo said. “But I think if you do a lot of training and you’re satisfied with it, do some more. I’d recommend at least 30 to 40 miles of work before the event.”

Landes said fatigue is rarely a problem because the adrenaline level is so high on parade day.

“It’s the shortest 5 1/2 miles I’ve ever marched,” he said. “Bands are literally swept along the street by the energy of the crowd.”

One piece of advice Jaramillo had for Hoehne and the Lancers is having water, water, everywhere.

“The tournament kind of frowns on it, but I’d recommend having strategically placed parents along the route who can hand out water when the kids are stopped and waiting for floats to move on,” he said. “We had people handing us water from the audience--that’s how nice people are at this parade.”