Besides being among the most heartwarming films you'll see at Hot Docs 2010 (which runs through May 9), Thunder Soul: The True Story Of Conrad Johnson & The Kashmere Stage Band will also have one of the very best soundtracks. Of course there's some stiff competition from some of the festival's other entries like Blank City, A Drummer's Dream, 1991 The Year Punk Broke, Complaints Choir and We Don't Care About Music Anyway but then again, those exceptional high school students from the Kashmere Gardens neighborhood on Houston's nasty northside were never afraid of a little friendly competition.
During the the late 60s and early 70s, the Kashmere Stage Band won nearly every single high school stage band showdown they entered – an astounding 42 out of 46 contests. As you'll discover from Mark Landsman's informative and inspirational Thunder Soul documentary, Kashmere's phenomenal decade of dominance on the stage band festival circuit actually had less to do with the 1973 group's super-tight rhythm section of drummer Craig Green (see interview in links below) and bassist Gerald Calhoun or the various stunning teen soloists who came and went than the wisdom and guidance of the program's indefatigable music director who built the KSB into an unstoppable stage band force year after year. Conrad Johnson, affectionately known as "Prof," wasn't satisfied with merely having the most ferociously funky high school stage band in Texas, he wouldn't settle for anything less than the very best high school band – ever.
The Kashmere Stage Band's amazing recorded legacy, neatly compiled on the Texas Thunder Soul 1968-74 (Now Again/Stones Throw) 2 CD archival set, provides hard evidence that they achieved Johnson's lofty goal. Certainly you won't hear a word of disagreement from credible deep funk authorities like Keb Darge (considered to be the first to spin a KSB record in a club setting) and DJ Shadow who helped touch off the schoolhouse funk craze with his KSB-inspired compilation series of the same name and also sampled their signature tune Kashmere for the Handsome Boy Modeling School track Holy Calamity.
What set the Kashmere Stage Band apart from the thousands of other school bands across North America is the way Johnson looked beyond the conventional big band jazz charts to embrace the contemporary funk idiom as a viable music form all the while encouraging his students to compose their own songs, perform them and record them. Of course, there's much more to the Kashmere story than a few badass tunes and Landsman puts it all into proper perspective with Thunder Soul which screens as part of the Small Acts series at the Cumberland 3 on Friday (May 7) at 9 pm, Bloor Cinema on Saturday (May 8) at 6 pm and again at The ROM Theatre on Sunday (May 9) at 1:45 pm. For tickets see link below.
No comments:
Post a Comment