Dick Zona brought sheet music. He encouraged parents to purchase instruments, or dust off saxophones, clarinets, and trumpets from the attics and basements throughout suburban subdivisions of Fairport and Pittsford, New York. He provided (for a small fee) music lessons, encouragement, patience. The students of SJR had the music in them. Zona brought it out, for all to hear.
Hear it now. On June 1, 1978, the SJR Band played its spring concert to an enthusiastic crowd. Really enthusiastic. They cheered. They whistled. They literally asked for more. The SJR Band, under the steady guidance of Dick Zona, delivered. Ken Smith made the recording on a Realistic (Radio Shack) monaural tape recorder, which I transferred to digital in 2009.
- Mr. Zona introduces the first song of the evening Old MacDonald in Stereo by explaining that "hit music nowadays is very seldom heard in monaural..." You had to be there to experience the full stereo effect.
- Love Will Keep Us Together
- Theme from Star Wars
- (unidentified song by guitar students)
- Shoofly Don't Bother Me (guitar students)
- Camptown Races (guitar students)
- The final song of the evening - Fidgets - is described by Mr. Zona as "what we call in the trade 'a blues number.'" This selection - on which every band member seemingly played fortissimo - brought down the house, and the crowd responded with a wildly enthusiastic standing ovation, as if they'd never heard the blues before. The blues were never the same again.
