In 1966 before SCV, there was the Sunnyvale Sparks. The Sparks were a small parade drum corps with 18 horns, 9 percussion and about 15 flags/rifles. Not a huge drum corps but we had the nucleus of becoming a pretty good drum corps. Gail was trying to build a championship drum corps with the talent from the Sunnyvale and Santa Clara school systems.
Most of the Sparks horn line were either in middle school or early high school. Not many older high school members were in the corps. Back at that time local high school band leaders frowned upon any links to drum corps (unlike today’s bands). This dilemma was eating at Gail Royer and he shared this thoughts with Bill Nicolosi who he knew from working with the San Jose State Band.
Bill had a suggestion for Gail. How about I get some of my San Jose State Band members to join your drum corps which will do two things, first it will immediately bring in some talented members and two, high school band members will now see these college kids and realize, this is a good thing to be a part of this drum corps if they wanted to go on to college music programs.
Next thing we knew, our horn line grew from an 18-person to around 36-person horn line. It happened almost overnight for the Sparks/Santa Clara Vanguard. In addition the Northern California Drum Corps Association was mainly Open Class meaning Senior Corps, All-Girl Corps, and Junior Corps could all compete against each other. What that allowed was for a few of our new San Jose State members who were a tad over 21 year (then the cut off for Junior Corps) to be in our drum corps.
The first wave of San Jose State Band members were as follows, Bill Nicolosi, Pete Reinheimer, Don Matthew, Bill Reeves, Bill Shahinian, Terry Lee, Dan Smith, Doug Brandt, and Denny Boots.
So to go from an 18-person horn line to 36 was a significant leap for the corps not to mention that in 1967 when we became the Santa Clara Vanguard with our whole new image which changed both our look and sound. Plus, a few of these SJS dudes could make those bugles scream taking it up an octave or two! It was a huge leap for us from mainly being a parade drum corps to one where we were now competing to be the best in Northern California and knocking on the door of the Southern California corps for 1967.
The funny thing after marching in a parade in the hot sun, when we were done, everyone would go back to their vehicles to change their clothes and that’s when the San Jose State dudes would be just dying for a beer! They never drank beer in uniformb but at a few of the parades you’d see a beer or two come out of the cooler sitting on top of their cars sipping away. Who could blame them? They were of age!
The next year (1968) Gail wanted the corps to start competing with the big boys of the Midwest, which meant our overage SJS members could no longer march with us. Some like Bill Nicolosi and Bill Reeves stayed with the corps and became the first of our junior instructors. The next wave of San Jose State Band members got bigger and more members were now part of the Santa Clara Vanguard. That along with now the local high schools kids would see us at parades and say, “I wanna be a part of that!”
Some of original SJS Band members went on to be High School Band teachers and would bring in some of their talented students into the corps like Pete Reinheimer with his “Branham Bunch Kids” as we all called them. Our talent pool grew leaps and bounds and Gail didn’t have to pull in warm bodies like me anymore, he was pulling in talented band members who were tops in their school programs. That first SJS Band wave had a huge impact on SCV!
To that first group of San Jose State “Spartan” Band members, we salute you for taking the dive and making SCV was it is today! We all tip a beer in your honor!
Best to all!
-JJA