Roseville Big Band News Emails - 2001

Roseville Big Band News - December 2001 (December 9, 2001)
Latin Rhythms Workshops (October 29, 2001)
Sit-in Night and Other News (October 15, 2001)
CAF Dance: Red Cross Fundraiser, September 22, 2001 (September 21, 2001)
Outstanding Performances (July 29, 2001)
First Roseville Big Band Concert in the Park for 2001 (May 31, 2001)
Confederate Air Force Dance etc. (May 18, 2001)
More Air Play for "Concert in the Park" (May 10, 2001)
Roseville Big Band Lyric-o-Matic (April 23, 2001)
First Anniversary of the Roseville Big Band Web Site (February 7, 2001)

Roseville Big Band News - December 2001 (December 9, 2001)

Roseville Big Band members, subs, and supporters,

Thanks to the efforts of Fred Christiansen, we now have storage space for our equipment in St. Michael's church. Fred spearheaded the project, including creating the architectural drawings and, with some volunteer helpers, constructing the enclosure.

We also are very grateful to Pastor Roland Hayes and the people of St. Michael's Lutheran Church for allowing us to practice in the church.

Thanks also go to Bob Nielsen for the years during which he kept most of our equipment in his basement and garage after we lost our rehearsal space in the activity center.

We also extend our thanks to Dr. Herminio Diaz for his two informative clinics on Latin American music. 28 band members and guests attended the sessions and now have a better appreciation for the roots and styles of the mambos, salsas, and other Latin selections we play.

Sarah (Wasmundt) Sonsalla, one of our trumpet subs, sent us her thanks for playing for her and Tim's wedding reception in September. In her October 31 email, Sarah said: "On behalf of Tim and myself, I wanted to thank you for playing at our wedding reception this past September. It meant a lot to us (especially me) to have all of you there. You sounded wonderful and I received many compliments from our guests on your performance. Our guests really enjoyed listening and dancing to your music (and so did we!) and many stated that it was one of the best wedding receptions that they had ever attended. Thank you so much for all of the hard work that you put in to make our reception a success. Also, thank you for making the special arrangement for me to play a solo with a band. It was one of the highlights of our wedding day!"

Sarah also added this note: "P.S. I was admitted to practice law last Friday (that's one of the reasons that this is so late!)." We congratulate Sarah on her achievement and look forward to seeing her at future sit-in nights and times when we need her to sub on trumpet again.

The Roseville Big Band web site (www.rosevillebigband.org <https://rosevillebigband.org>) continues to grow in popularity. In November, the site had its 5000th visitor, and the average number of visits per day grew to more than 100.

You sometimes hear the term "hits" used when referring to web sites. In November, our web site had over 31,000 hits, with a daily average of over 1000 hits. If someone views a page on the site, that counts as a "visit", and if that person goes from one page to another before leaving the site, each of those counts as a "hit", but it's all part of the same visit. That's why the number of hits on the Roseville Big Band site typically is between 10 and 20 times the number of visits.


Thanks to all for making this a musically enriching year!

Glen

Latin Rhythms Workshops (October 29, 2001)

Roseville Big Band Members and Subs,

Tuesday, October 30, and Tuesday, November 6, Dr. Herminio Diaz will join the Roseville Big Band to present two workshops on Latin Rhythms and more.

Although the focus will be on the rhythm aspects of tangos, merengues, rhumbas, sambas, etc., we will also apply this knowledge to several of the selections in our repertoire, so please bring your instruments and music and be prepared to play.

Other workshop topics include showing us how to play the various Latin percussion instruments, watching videos and listening to demonstrations of the rhythms and instruments, and perhaps even learning to do the characteristic dances associated with the rhythms.

To prepare for the workshops, Herminio suggested the following sites:

www.lpmusic.com <http://www.lpmusic.com>
<http://www.cam.org/~raybiss/rhythms/>

(Note that after you download the ActiveX control on the second site, music starts playing and continues even after you open up the sample songs in a separate window. To stop the initial music, so you can hear the demos, return to the first window and click the stop button.)

Note that our Roseville Big Band subs are invited to these sessions, along with regular band members. You're invited even if you can only attend one of the two sessions.

I hope to see you there!

Glen

Sit-in Night and Other News (October 15, 2001)

If you're interested in sitting in with the Roseville Big Band, we'd be delighted to have you attend our sit-in night this Tuesday, October 16, 2001. (Bring friends, too, if they'd like to play along with the band that night.)

Sit-in night will be held in the dining room of St. Michael's Lutheran Church, 1660 W. Co. Rd. B in Roseville, about a block and a half west of Snelling Ave. N. The church is on the south side of the street. The dining room is in the southeast corner of the church, next to the parking lot. There's a map on the Roseville Big Band web site: https://rosevillebigband.org/StMichaelsMap.htm

We'll rehearse from 7:30 to 9:30. Please bring a music stand if you have one!

Other News
----------

The September 22, 2001, Confederate Air Force Dance was a successful fundraiser for the American Red Cross, and the Roseville Big Band played a significant part. We sold 19 CDs and 3 tapes, donating the entire purchase price to the Red Cross, for a total of $315. We also waived our usual fee, enabling the CAF to donate an additional $625 to the Red Cross.

Recent additions to the Roseville Big Band web site include the list of songs we played on September 22 (https://rosevillebigband.org/history/CAFF01Actual.htm) a picture of couples dancing under a bomber's wing, just as the lyrics to "Dance to the Big Band Swing" suggest (https://rosevillebigband.org/galleries/DanceUnderBombersWing.htm) and a picture of bagpiper Lynn Ista playing "Amazing Grace" at the dance (https://rosevillebigband.org/personnel/guestsubs/AmazingGrace.htm).

Interest in the Roseville Big Band web site (https://rosevillebigband.org) continues to be high, and in September the site had an average of 74 visits per day. Recent additions to the site include audio excerpts in Windows Media format, and "Blue Skies", one of the songs that now includes this additional audio format, is the subject of one of the most popular web pages. It even includes a pseudo-video (i.e., a still picture zooming and turning) of one of the excerpts.

Remember that if you're looking for specific information on the web site, you can use the Search button, fill in descriptive words, and get a list of matching web pages.

I hope to see some of you at sit-in night!

Glen

CAF Dance: Red Cross Fundraiser, September 22, 2001 (September 21, 2001)

Roseville Big Band Members and Supporters,

The Southern Minnesota Wing of the Confederate Air Force will donate all the proceeds from its 2001 Bomber's Moon Ball hangar dance to the Red Cross disaster relief fund. To increase the amount that will be given to the Red Cross, the Roseville Big Band is donating its time for this dance.

This is the regularly scheduled Confederate Air Force fall hangar dance; it will be held in hangar #3 at Fleming Field in S. St. Paul from 8 p.m. until midnight. TC Swing (Cindy and Terry Gardner) will give free swing dance lessons from 7:00 until 7:45, so come early to brush up on your technique!

To further inspire your swing dancing, the Rhythm & Swing dancers will perform on two special selections.
The Roseville Big Band's music for the dance will emphasize swing music from the 1930's and '40's but will include other styles and eras as well. To see the tentative song list, visit the band's web site, www.rosevillebigband.org, click on the "Public Performances" button, and click on the beginning of the sentence "Click here ..." in the description of the dance. Alternatively, you can go directly to www.rosevillebigband.org/history/CAFF01Tentative.htm.

I hope I'll see all of you at the dance!

Glen

Outstanding Performances (July 29, 2001)

Roseville Big Band members and supporters,

I hope that many of you were among the approximately 3000 people at our July 4 concert in Central Park or the 462 people at our July 17 concert/dance at the Minnesota History Center, because both were outstanding performances.

Here's what Wendy Freshman, Family Programs Associate for the Minnesota Historical Society, said in her follow-up letter dated July 19:

============ To Glen Newton, Roseville Big Band Director ============
A big thank you to you and The Roseville Big Band for performing for the History Center's Nine Nights of Music Fun!

The show was a complete success - fun, energetic, well-paced, participatory (I loved "YMCA") and inspired our audience members to get up and dance! I applaud your band members for being such troupers, despite the heat and the humidity.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the performance on cable TV. I'm so glad all of the complicated set-up worked out and John was able to get the shots he wanted.

Please pass along my hearty congratulations to the rest of the band members and let them know how much we appreciated their splendid job.

I will look forward to another collaboration with you in the near future. Have a terrific summer and let's stay in touch.
========= From Wendy Freshman, Minnesota Historical Society ========

As always, we couldn't have achieved this without our dedicated band members, featured guests, talented substitutes, and hard-working CTV volunteers.

The Roseville Big Band web site (https://rosevillebigband.org ) already has the song lists and some pictures from the performances (e.g., new web pages for subs Al Burns and Jim Guckenberg and updated pages for subs Dan Odegaard and Bill Johnson and guest vocalist Sarah Morris) and I'll be adding more soon. I've also made numerous updates throughout the site recently: new material on improvising, updates to the FAAQs (frequently asked audio questions), additional pictures of the Rhythm & Swing dancers, and more. So if you haven't looked at the site recently, take a few minutes and browse through it.

The number of worldwide internet users visiting the Roseville Big Band web site continues to rise. This month, the site had an average of 82 visits per day, compared with about 42 per day in January. Our list of upcoming events is the most popular page, but the "Meet the Band" section and picture galleries are almost as popular. The songs "Moon River", "Woodchopper's Ball" and "Georgia On My Mind" were the most frequently referenced audio files on the site.

As you would expect, it's not just local music fans who are learning about the Roseville Big Band through our web site. This month, we've had visits from throughout the United States and Canada, as well as the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Germany, Bermuda, Poland, Argentina, and Denmark, plus a dozen other countries.

This week we have two more performances:

For more information on both of them, see https://rosevillebigband.org/PublicEvents.htm.
We hope to see you there!

Glen

First Roseville Big Band Concert in the Park for 2001 (May 31, 2001)

Roseville Big Band supporters,

We hope you will join us at the Roseville Central Park band shell Tuesday, June 5, 2001, for the first concert in the Roseville Parks and Recreation summer concert series. The Roseville Big Band concert begins at 7:30 and continues for about 75-90 minutes. You'll see the Rhythm & Swing dancers and hear the band and the Rosetones perform some old favorites and new arrangements.

You'll also have opportunities to participate --- shouting out "Pennsylvania 6-5000" after the phone rings, spelling out "YMCA", and playing Latin percussion instruments.

You'll also get to hear representatives of two of the instrument families created by one of the greatest musical instrument inventors of all time --- Adolphe Sax --- up close and personal as Glen Peterson and Glen Newton walk into the audience while soloing on the tenor saxophone and the tenor saxhorn.

Remember to bring your lawn chair or blanket to sit on, and tell all your friends! The band shell is near the southeast corner of Lexington Ave. and County Rd. C in Roseville.

If you or your friends live in the ten-city area served by CTV15 and the Northern Suburbs Cable Commission, you can also tape the concert as it is broadcast live on Channel 15.

We'll have copies of our Concert in the Park CD and tape for sale, for those who enjoy the music and would like a memento of the concert.

Here's the song list for the concert: https://rosevillebigband.org/history/2001-06-05.htm

I hope to see you there!

Glen

P.S. - About 400 people attended the Confederate Air Force Dance on May 19. If you missed that dance, be sure to mark Tuesday, July 17 on your calendar, because that's the date of our next dance, to be held at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. This dance is free and will be held outdoors if weather permits. As always, you can check our schedule, get directions, and see photos and other historical information on our web site: https://rosevillebigband.org

P.P.S. - The Roseville Big Band's recording of Keith Miner's "My Little Girl" (one of the tracks on the Concert in the Park CD) was recently featured on both "One Night Stand" and "Make Believe Ballroom", hosted by Chris Nielsen and broadcast across the nation by stations that carry NPR programs.

Confederate Air Force Dance etc. (May 18, 2001)

Roseville Big Band members and supporters,

Don't forget the Confederate Air Force Dance THIS SATURDAY, May 19, 2001, from 8 p.m. until midnight at Fleming Field in South St. Paul. Cindy and Terry will teach swing dance lessons from 7:00 to 7:45, and Rhythm & Swing will give dance exhibitions near the middle of the first set and at the beginning of the second set.

You can get directions to the dance and see the tentative song lineup for the dance in the Public Performances portion of the Roseville Big Band web site: https://rosevillebigband.org/PublicEvents.htm. Remember that when you enter the web site through a page like this that is not the home page, you have navigation controls at the bottom, and you can get back to the home page with frames by clicking on www.rosevillebigband.org at the bottom of the page.

Another page you'll enjoy visiting is the new, improved, amazing Lyric-o-Matic song lyric creator. The new version (engineered by Keith with additional lyrics by Glen) alternates between a guy's song and a girl's song each time you press the "New Song" button. You can go directly to the Lyric-o-Matic at https://rosevillebigband.org/lyric-o-matic.html, or you can find it from the Roseville Big Band home page by clicking on Picture Gallery, then on Just for Fun, and finally on Lyric-o-Matic.
If anyone else would like to help with the web site --- providing information, preparing audio or graphics, or anything else, please let me know.

Glen

More Air Play for "Concert in the Park" (May 10, 2001)

Roseville Big Band members and supporters,

Chris Nielsen, the host of "One Night Stand", used "My Little Girl" for the show that will be broadcast May 13, 2001, from WUKY and three weeks later on the national network. (He commented that he likes Keith's vocal.) As most of you know, this song, written and sung by Keith Miner, is the one original composition on the Roseville Big Band's "Concert in the Park" CD (www.rosevillebigband.org/CDs.htm ). Other songs on the CD were featured on three previous "One Night Stand" shows.

Recent updates to the Roseville Big Band web site (www.rosevillebigband.org) include addition of the Summer Entertainment 2001 flyer, which features a picture of the Roseville Big Band trombone section in performance. Click on "Public Performances", then scroll to the bottom, where you see "Click here for the full schedule of Central Park concerts." The schedule is also available in text form on the Roseville Parks & Recreation web site (http://www.ci.roseville.mn.us/parks/concerts.htm ).

Alternatively, you can find the summer concert flyer from the History section of the site. If you click on "History", you'll see the graphic of the trombones, which you can click to get to the flyer. You'll also see the flyer from the 2001 Tapestry dance and a montage of Roseville Big Band business cards, including our new double-sided cards. If you click on the business card picture, then on the picture of the front of the card in the next page, you'll see the detail of the front and back. Note that the back displays the logo for the prestigious Gold Medal award that Roseville Parks and Recreation won in competition against other cities in the same population size group.

In April, the Roseville Big Band web site had an average of 56 visitors per day from around the world. So far this month, the daily average is 68 visits (although the number of "hits" per day is down from 917 to 637, indicating that the average visit is shorter), and the most popular pages include Public Events, the audio page for Woodchopper's Ball, and the Lyric-o-Matic song creator (www.rosevillebigband.org/lyric-o-matic.htm ).

Glen

Roseville Big Band Lyric-o-Matic (April 23, 2001)

Hello, everyone!

The main purpose of this e-mail is to tell you about an amusing addition to the Roseville Big Band web site: The Amazing Lyric-o-Matic! This is a (strictly for fun) lyric generator that Keith Miner created a while back and we recently incorporated into the web site. Each time you select it (or click on "New Song" in the page), it generates a new song, using a standard formula and a set of phrases that Keith and I put together.

To get to the Lyric-o-Matic:

- Go directly to https://rosevillebigband.org/lyric-o-matic.htm, or

- Start at the Roseville Big Band home page, https://rosevillebigband.org, then click on "Picture Gallery" in the navigation bar at the left, then on the picture labeled "Just for Fun!", and finally on the phrase "Start here" in the first paragraph on the "Roseville Big Band Picture and Activity Potpourri" page.

We hope you enjoy it and pass it on to your friends!

I also wanted to mention that thanks to the efforts of organizers Randy and Monica Oehrlein and many other volunteers, the "Putting on the Ritz" dance that the Roseville Big Band played for earned $2267 for the Roseville Area High School music programs. Thanks again to all who helped! If you'd like to see the song list from the dance, you can find it from the Public Performances list on our web page or by going directly to https://rosevillebigband.org/history/2001-03-10.htm.

Thanks also go to those who helped make last Tuesday's sit-in night a success. Seven musicians from the community sat in with the band, and three non-playing (except for playing shakers on Latin tunes) guests watched parts of the rehearsal. The songs we played included our first reading of Bill Frank's arrangement of Don Fagen's "Maxine", a fine addition to the Roseville Big Band repertoire.

The Roseville Big Band also donated CDs to be part of the grand prize package for the winners of the Great Lakes Region Qualification
for the American Showcase Division of the American Lindy Hop Championship, which will be held at the Tapestry Folkdance Center, Saturday, June 2, 2001 (on the same dance floor that we played on two weeks ago - https://rosevillebigband.org/history/Tapestry2001.htm). Terry and Cindy are organizing this event, which includes an afternoon competition, an evening swing dance with a competitor's showcase, and lots more. For more details, go to http://www.tcswing.com/lindy.htm.

Sincerely,
Glen Newton, Director and Webmaster
Roseville Big Band

First Anniversary of the Roseville Big Band Web Site (February 7, 2001)

Hello to everyone!

In its first year of existence, the Roseville Big Band web site (www.rosevillebigband.org) has grown from nothing to a site with 300 web pages, over 400 pictures of the band and its audiences, 60 sound clips, and a smattering of graphic buttons. How many words are on those pages? Over 60,800!

According to the service provider's automated statistics routines, there have been 95,000 "hits" on the site from worldwide web users in more than 30 different countries. This reflects 7000 visits to the site in its first year. The average number of site visits per day has grown to about 30, with January's average of 39 visits per day the highest so far.

What do visitors to the site look for? In January the most popular sections of the web site were the listing of the band's public performances, the history section of the site, the Members' Corner section (with internal schedules and rosters), the picture gallery, and the FAQs (frequently asked questions).

A few people have sent messages to the "Contact Us" email address in the web site. The topics of these communications included interest in the band playing for them, trying to sell us music, inquiring about a long-lost friend who plays in the band, interest in singing or playing with the band, and inquiries about soprano trombones (!).

At the beginning of February, 2000, Jo and I worked out the basic design of the site and created the first dozen or so web pages for the site. Since then, we've added and revised many times to try to give the site depth of content and ease of navigation, optimizing graphics to make the pages quick to download and contacting administrators of other related web sites about linking to our site. (We, in turn, link to other web sites of interest to our visitors, such as the Parks and Recreation part of the Roseville web site.) Jo and I have lots more ideas for improving the site, ones you'll see in this second year of the site's existence.

If you haven't recently browsed through the site, we invite you to take some time now and do so. You'll find, for example, a new section of the picture gallery that includes pictures from last weekend's 2001 Carleton College Mid-Winter dance. You'll also find Brian Dole (who subbed on piano at the dance) has been added to the "former members" section of the site, and the history section of the site includes the list of songs we played at Carleton. Besides adding completely new pages and graphics, we update older pages when we have time to incorporate additional material, such as John Peterson's review of Keith Miner's scat singing or excerpts from the Eagan This Week article that featured Glen Peterson, so when you return to pages you've visited before, you might well find something new!

Of course, we're always interested in your feedback on the site!

Glen and Jo Newton

Click the year to read the Roseville Big Band news emails for 2000, 2002, and 2003.

This page was last updated
Friday, June 18, 2021.


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