Mr. Bradley's Band (now with original music!)

So many years had passed, I'd almost forgotten. But when I spotted the ribbons and medals at the bottom of my parents' green file box, the memories returned as if it were yesterday.

There were five of them: one had a red, white and blue ribbon attached to a bronze medallion. They called that one the "Achievement Medal" ... the musician's equivalent to an Eagle Scout Badge. Then there were a couple of blue ones awarded by the Georgia Music Educators Association for a superior performance at one of their annual music festivals as well as a couple more for making it to the Nationals.

Along with most everything else my parents believed were special, the medals from my days in the East Atlanta Elementary Band had rested undisturbed in the bottom of the green metal file box for more than half a century. The ubiquitous green box came to my house in the days following my mom's death in 2004. I'd been in no hurry to open it - just too many memories. However, earlier this year, at tax time, it was time to clean out, throw away and shred all the old stuff I'd been accumulating.

It's amazing how a lifetime of memories can fit into a box so small. Among the items I found inside was my dad's draft notice from 1944 ... my mom's efficiency reports from her wartime job as a statistician with the Public Health Service. Faded and torn pictures, broken watches and jewelry; a few old coins. A Savings Passbook, receipts for household purchases made forty years ago and warranties that had long since expired. A yellowed envelope contained my SAT scores, letters of acceptance from Georgia Tech and Emory University. Also notices from the Registrar's office at Georgia Tech saying that because of low grades, I'd been placed on warning, then on probation.

Toward the bottom I found my library card, my student Athletic Card, and beneath it all - tarnished and a little grungy from age - my band medals. I picked them up one-by-one and as best I could, wiped off the dirt and tucked the frayed ribbons back under the clasp. I remembered the talent show at Mary Lin Elementary school where it all began ... when the skinny seventh grade kid with glasses got up to play the tenor saxophone.

And play he did. A rousing rendition of an upbeat tune called Nola written by Felix Arndt that brought down the house. Billy was good. Very good. So good that many thought he was a child prodigy. Maybe he was, but maybe he was simply like so many other kids that studied music under Charles I. Bradley. By age 12, nearly all of them could play like a prodigy.

I was only ten years old at the time and starting the fifth grade, but I was hooked. After that talent show, I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to learn to play the saxophone just like my older classmate Billy Puitt. And that's how I came to know Charles Bradley.

Mr. Bradley taught music for the City of Atlanta Public School System. Like a circuit preacher in Appalachia, he wandered from school-to-school across Atlanta's not-so-affluent east side giving music lessons. Each Wednesday at the appointed time, four or five of us would crowd into the tiny room at the end of the hall above the auditorium and wait for our fifteen minutes in front of the maestro.

Mr. Bradley taught brass, percussion and woodwinds with equal aplomb. As we watched in amazement, he'd tap out a rhythm for a drum student, buzz his lips for a wannabe trumpet player and demonstrate the proper placement of lip against reed for a student of one of the woodwind instruments.

Once we could make our loaner horn sound somewhat better than a wounded Canada Geese, he'd invite us to join the "B Band" - a mostly out-of-tune assemblage of musical interns. When he liked what he heard coming out the bell of the horn or when he could hear tapping that actually followed the score from a snare drum, if he was in a good mood, you'd get promoted to the "A Band."

I made the "A Band" about six months after I began taking lessons ... after turning-in the horrible school-furnished horn; after my parents bought me my own used, but newly reconditioned one.  I'll never forget that day. That day when Mr. Bradley said he was moving me up to the A-Band. I couldn't wait to tell my parents. You'd have thought I'd found a diamond in a box of Cracker Jacks!

Band practice for both groups was after the school day ended in the Kirkwood Elementary School auditorium. In the winter, the room was so cold many of the musicians wore their jackets. In the spring and early fall, it was so hot, Mr. Bradley wore shorts. Dripping with sweat, he'd climb onto the podium, rise onto his toes and wave his baton. As he directed the young musicians, his eyes would scan the group. It's rumored that sometimes he would smile, but usually he frowned like someone undergoing a root canal.

When it was time for the trumpets, he'd turn and nod toward the trumpet section. When it was time for the tympani, he'd turn and nod toward the percussion. If he wasn't pleased with the sound or the expression, his look would turn even more menacing and the nodding would stop. With one hand, he'd pound the conductors' stand with his baton; with the other, he'd wave frantically for us to stop playing. Once all was quiet, he'd proceed to ream the errant musician a new one. Afterwards he'd shake his head, sigh and say, "Okay, okay. Let's try it again from the fermata just before the Coda, and this time ..."

We all knew what "this time" meant. It meant that if you screwed-up a second time, or heaven forbid a third, he might break his baton on the music stand and send splinters flying across the room. He'd place both hands on his hips and give one of the cowering musicians a glare to end all glares. If you were first chair, you could count on moving to second. If you were second chair, to third and so forth. Worst of all, this was in front of God and everybody.

Yep, Mr. Bradley was a harsh taskmaster. A perfectionist. One who demanded excellence but seldom received it. When disappointment reigned supreme, his stare could look a hole right through a 12-year old. Some of the kids couldn't take it. One, like a friend who recently shared with me his experiences with Mr. Bradley's band, commented that Charlie Bradley was the meanest man God ever created. Not so. He was just one of those individuals that planted the seed with a mallet and demanded that it grow, with or without water.

Oh, but his bands produced beautiful music. Such beautiful music. Not the kind of squealing and squawking you hear from today's school bands during a spring concert or halftime at a football game. Wonderful music. Music like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Franz Liszt Les Preludes. Ravel's Bolero, Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italian, Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espanol. Dvorak's "New World" Symphony,Ketelbey's "In A Persian Market." Sousa's marches and F. J. Ricketts march entitled, "Colonel Bogey."

When we performed well - and I mean really well - there are those that swear that when Charlie Bradley turned toward the audience and took his bow, he would actually wear a big grin.

While I was a member of this elite ensemble, year-in and year-out we received superior ratings at the state level. By invitation, we frequently traveled across the country and performed before the National Music Educators Association in Chicago and St. Louis where we also received superior ratings. We made regular summertime appearances at the Band Shell in Daytona Beach where I was honored to perform with the band's sax quartet. We were all good. All of us.

Perhaps more important than the trips. More important than the medals. Even more important than the nurturing of some hidden musical talent, Charles Bradley imparted his love for music to a bunch of kids that otherwise might never have known it. Kids that would have never experienced chill bumps when the tympani sounded ‘bing, bong, bing, bong, bing bong' in the 1812 Overture. Kids whose heart would never have skipped a beat when the French horns blared in Les Preludes. Kids that would have never been able to use their mind's eye to travel to exotic and far away places through the lilting strains of "In A Persian Market" or "Bolero."Mr. Bradley said that the reason he could get such young children to play such difficult music was that he never told them it was difficult.

Long after I was grown, one of Mr. Bradley's bands played at the Nixon White House.  Afterwards, he related this story to a friend: He said the band practiced hard for their performance. They had to. On such an important occasion, he insisted they play "Hail To The Chief" according to exact protocol.

On the day of the performance, the conductor raised his baton. The band snapped to attention and began to play. The tempo was a precise 90 beats per minute. "But," Mr. Bradley said, "When the President strode into the room, it got uncontrollably faster and faster until they finished at about 150!" A personal letter from President Nixon days later complemented the band on the 'most remarkable' rendition of "Hail To the Chief" he'd ever heard! 

Mr. Bradley went on to conduct the Callenwolde adult band and lead the Emory Wind Ensemble. Even today, band instructors all across Georgia consider him the gold standard: the benchmark for excellence, the one by which all others are judged. The Georgia Music Educators Association has a hall of fame in Savannah where the all-state band and orchestra competitions are held each year. Charles Bradley was the initial inductee.

He said the 1961 band was his finest. After that, the effects of mandated social change and white flight to the ‘burbs took its toll. The result was a decline in quality, and a decline in quality was something that Charlie Bradley couldn't stomach.

One day, as he left a practice session at an Atlanta City school, he was stoned by a bunch of young thugs. Afterwards, Mr. Bradley, that wonderful man that for decades had introduced a bunch of rag-tag ruffians to classical music, hung up his baton - as least as far as teaching poor kids in the public school system was concerned. 

While many aspiring young musician spent their time as a pre-teen desiring his praise and avoiding his wrath, when I look back and consider all of what he accomplished with mainly prepubescent children, I realize that it will never be duplicated. Certainly not in Atlanta, certainly not in today's "government" schools.

Life is often best understood in retrospect. In hindsight, even tragedy can frequently be funny. The details - though they seem painful at the time - can then be scrutinized and appreciated so much more.  It's amazing how our lives take shape. Sometimes we're nudged; sometimes we're pushed, sometimes we have to be hammered. Every time I sit down at the keyboard to play, or drag out the tenor sax my wife gave me for Christmas, I'm glad that Charlie Bradley hammered on me. I thank him for sharing his love for beautiful music and for teaching a nincompoop like me how to play.

If there's a flute section in heaven, no doubt Charlie Bradley is first chair. And if God needed an angel to teach young cherubs how to make beautiful music, he couldn't pick a better teacher than Charles I. Bradley.                         

 NEW! click on the icons below and listen to a performance by the EAEB as recorded in Atlantic City, circa 1956!  To hear selections from a 1958 concert in Hattiesburg and a 1961 concert in Asheville, go here: http://eaeb.net

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