Brentwood High School Stage Band, director: Thomas Booth

Brentwood High Stage Band featured Vince with his Vistalite Drums

Pierre Schaeffer

- Inventor of Musique Concrete - engineer and broadcaster had profound effect on music!

Edgard Varese -
inspired by Busoni and Debussey - "I long for instruments obedient to my thought and whim, with their contribution of a whole new world of unsusoected sounds, which will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm"

Frank Zappa - thoughts on Varese

Frank Zappa Website -

Brentwood High School Stage Band with director Mr. Tom Booth

I played drum set in stage band for 4 years, two of which, the only drum set player in the band. Art Crivella was the other drummer, the other two years. The band played a modern, fun selection of music running the gamut from jazz to rock. The band director: Mr. Thomas Booth, brought in Randy Purcell, who was fresh off tour with trumpet player and band leader: Maynard Ferguson, to help us along with our production. We played a tune (The Way We Were) from the actual Maynard charts! Ludwig Vistalite drums made Vince look and sound like a pretty hot drummer in high school!

Ludwig Vistalite drums made Vince look and sound like a pretty hot drummer in high school!

(with the trumpet parts "as written" as opposed to the octaves Maynard does in live performance. Eric Bold was featured Trombone player, and played the same part Purcell played while on tour!

The band participated in many jazz festivals and was always appreciated because of musicianship and modern tune selection. Below is a real audio sample from our band. Remember: tape players had just been invented, and this tape was made by my friend (Brenda Peterson) holding the player in her lap. It is of low quality! The tape also had to be recorded over a couple of times. Turn down your volume! Drum Solo from 1974, when I was a Junior in high school. (and finishing on 1!) It was a tune called: 'Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show', and it rocked out with an extended hard rock guitar solo followed by my little break. I remember this was played on my 'Whitehall' kit, which was my first drum set.

Mark Cottichia on Sax, Joseph Kammermeier on trumpet, Jim Mohan also on trumpet, Archie Bradshaw playing bass guitar, Jim Zern on guitar and Lisa Yovetich were some memorable members of that band. It was many years into my professional drumming career before I played with a piano player as good as Lisa. Many great performance memories.

The drums pictured are the rock oversized version of blue Vistalite drums by Ludwig. Zildjian cymbals and high hats made this set sound great, for it's time. Shortly after high school, I traded for wood drums which were much more mellow, and never looked back. From 'Drums' in Crafton PA, I got a beautiful new set of Ludwig's with a 6 1/2" X 14" snare drum, for just under $700. The vistalite's with cases and four cymbals were: a little over $900! I paid for that kit with my own money, so it was especially significant. My next kit after the white Ludwig kit was: Roger, an eight ply maple seven piece set.