Miles L. Clark
Scott C. Callaway
My friend David Albert sent me a copy of a recording made of our former band director, Scott C. Callaway, giving a speech at a Rotary Club somewhere in North Carolina. First of all I can’t tell you how nice it was to hear that voice again; that animated, lilting voice with a touch of Mississippi, Michigan, Kentucky and North Carolina all jumbled together. He mostly talked about Miles Clark and his history, most of which I had never heard, and also about how he came to be band director in Elizabeth City. Now all that will probably be mundane and boring stuff to people who were never in the band, but to me it was heaven.
And for those of you who don’t know, Miles Clark (Uncle Miles), was a huge benefactor of the Elizabeth City High School Band, which preceded the Northeastern High School Band. He bought the band uniforms, instruments, 4 busses, an equipment truck and sent the students to band camp. He also set up a trust fund and when he died he left the band around 220,000 dollars. Unfortunately I never got to meet the man. I was 7 when he died.
And as I was listening to Callaway’s voice (yes, we referred to him by his last name, not face to face of course, but it was always Callaway, just like it will always be Albert, Saunders, Winslow, Newby, MacDougal, Toppin, Stevenson, Jordan, Murray, etc.), I was transported back to my first experience in the actual band. It was Callaway who taught me to read music, and in 7th grade I was struggling with the concept. But I clearly remember one day when he was explaining this strange new language on a blackboard where he had drawn music staves; it was in the auditorium of the P.W. Moore school, and suddenly, I got it. I have no idea how he did it but I finally got it!
My next sensory impression was the smell of the band room. The band rooms at P.W. Moore and Elizabeth City High School were both on the ground floor and I remember both of them getting flooded during heavy rains and storms. The smell was always just a little moldy and wet with an element of slide and valve oil and spit. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.
I remember the first concert we gave in the 7th grade and that feeling of making music with a group. I’m sure it was horrible with out of tune brass and squeaky clarinets, but I can’t tell you how godlike I felt turning those strange black dots into music.
At Northeastern, during my sophomore year there was a group of us that would spend our lunch break listening to albums in the bandroom. That’s where I first heard albums by Billy Joel, Seals and Crofts, Yes, Chicago and many others. That was just as much a part of my education as anything that ever happened in a classroom. I will never forget that sense of communal listening and the discussions afterwards about what was good or bad, what we liked and disliked.
I remember my senior year when I made All-State Band and Callaway came on the bus and handed me a folio for 1st Trombone. I knew there were 2 people on each part and I was dying to know whether I got first chair or second chair. I just kept looking at Callaway and after an eternity of waiting he started walking away, but he turned back around with a slight smile and said “first chair”.
I remember when we had a band from Scarsdale come to visit and getting an “eye slap” from Callaway when I added smears in my solo to try to impress the New York girls during “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from the Porgy and Bess medley. He never said a word about it… but that look…
In many ways that band was my salvation. It provided me with friends and a safe zone in high school, it broadened my musical horizons and it taught me a lot of life lessons.
And if I may get political for a minute. I find it strange that the politicians in my home state want to cut funding for education, especially music education, when it has been proven and documented that it is such an important and vital part of anyone’s education, not just people who make music a career, but for people in general. Music education has enriched so many lives.
Seriously dear politicians…how hard is it to wrap your head around the fact that if you don’t invest in education now, future tax dollars will be going to fund more prisons and welfare, to fight rising crime and unemployment?
Let me put it this way, if I could ever find a politician who was as committed to doing good and helping people, and who positively impacted lives the way that Miles Clark and Scott C. Callaway did, they would have my undying support. Sadly, I don’t believe such a politician exists.
Mr. Callaway and Miles Clark had a tremendous impact on the young people in Pasquotank County and I sincerely hope they will not be forgotten.
And now, at this rather late stage in my life, I am a teacher (something I never had a desire to be or do, which I now love, and it is a job I often feel woefully unprepared for) and I sometimes find myself channeling Mr. Callaway. I remember some days he would spend the whole rehearsal period talking about some life lesson, telling us stories about when he was in North Africa during the war, or some incident from his childhood, or this or that. And at the time I hated it. I wanted to play. But somehow those life lessons seeped into my brain and probably made me a better person. And in my own classes, when my brain and the course plan calls for me to talk about non-diatonic chords, song structure, secondary dominants or perfect versus imperfect rhymes, my heart takes over and I find myself talking to my students about life instead, about how living is inspiration and music is a healer.
So… since it seems that September is reminiscence month for me, I want to thank Miles Clark for giving so generously of his money to give people like me the fantastic opportunity to be in the band, and Scott C. Callaway for introducing me to so much glorious music and teaching me so much…even when I didn’t know I was learning.
albemarlesounds 