Band

Mel and Pete Butler, the LUHS music department, during rehearsal for the school musical.

In 1959 Mel got a job teaching band in the Crowfoot School District. It was the start of a great run. He helped fourth graders pick out instruments and he taught middle-schoolers how to stop squirming long enough to blast out a couple of songs. In college, a professor taught him that he was not teaching music; he was teaching children. That’s what he always did.

In 1967 he was promoted from elementary school to the Lebanon Union High School. Right away he started building a national-recognized jazz program in a mill town. He had one boy in elementary school who was particularly talented. Grant had a rock band in addition to all of his other musical pursuits. One Saturday night on a lonely stretch of a country road, a crash ended it all. Trying to find some way to salvage something and assuage the community’s grief, Mel started the Grant Johnson Concert to fund scholarships for band students to attend camp. For more than 50 years students have been receiving scholarships.

He regularly took a bunch of teen-agers on a bus to Reno for one of the largest high school jazz festivals in the country. And his bands always placed well. Promotion to the stage band required learning a new skill: reading Mel’s chicken scratch. Almost all of our charts were handwritten by Mel with a Flair pen. Weekends were spent with a tape player, headphones, Flair-tip pen, paper. Can you imagine the skill he developed in in working the fast forward and rewind functions on the tape player?

What did Mel teach his children?

First, he taught us about teamwork. We didn’t need a definition for synergy. We lived it. The band was greater than the sum of its parts. Each musician had to do his or her part. Cory’s one note triangle solo at the end of The March was essential to a good performance. Yes, Ballsy rarely was highlighted on the bass, but how do you have good jazz without a rich bass line?

Developing a team required that each member be valued and respected. Mel treated all his students the same. It didn’t matter to him if you were the child of a lawyer or a doctor or if you were the kid who lacked a home and funded high school by working at the diner. You got what you deserved. And Mel was an early adopter of feminism. Did he have any choice as the husband to a strong woman who raised two strong daughters? At a time when “girls” were not supposed to play wind instruments in a jazz band, he let them play sax, trumpet, and trombone. When you walked in the door to the band room, the only thing that mattered was that you were going to play your heart out. So we did. We experienced the joy of being a part of a team.

Being part of a team meant that we had to set aside all the high school divisions because Mel welcomed the students with straight As, but he also welcomed the athletes, the stoners (it was the 70s), and the church kids. We learned to look beyond the cliches. It was The Breakfast Club without the detention teacher.

Second, he taught us about excellence and to believe that we were capable of excellence. Kids in a blue collar mill town, playing as well as the richest kids in the country. He showed us that a great deal of excellence comes from commitment to the task. In 1973 he took a band to Belgium, the first time the school board approved a trip abroad for a group. That meant raising $17,000. So we played every prom and dance we could land. We went door to door collecting newspapers. We sold Glo-Yos. And some of us even went to the chicken farm to capture chickens for the farmer to “harvest.” Excellence means doing whatever it takes.

Mel’s style of directing was decidedly minimalist. He would start the number up with a couple of snaps and a slight lift of his forearms. Then he would walk off stage. He trusted us to do the rest. We would produce something excellent.

Perhaps what set Mel apart from other teachers is that he taught us fun and excellence are not antonyms. It’s perfectly okay to have a good time. I’m not sure Mel spent a day in his life working. Band and barbershop were always about the fun.

In 1974, we had a combo along with the jazz band. We learned that there was a photo shoot for the yearbook. So the combo rounded up all the odds and ends, the bassoon, the French horn, and the strings that hadn’t been used in 20 years. After the shoot, Mel got hauled down to the office because the yearbook advisor was furious about our disrespect. We would NOT be included in the yearbook. Mel turned around and bought us all copies of the combo picture. We all cherished it. And I think he had his copy posted in his office. We made music and we had fun.

Some of went on to careers in the music industry. Most of us did not. However, his lessons were not lost on any of us. He taught us a little bit about music and a lot about life.