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To learn more about the UCLA band's history, go to: www.uclaband.com. Were you in the band for this performance? Contact us with your memories at (310) 206-0383 or UCLAHistoryProject@UCLAlumni.net. |
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Soon after nominations were announced for the 41st Academy Awards, the ceremony’s noted director-choreographer-producer Gower Champion contacted the UCLA Band with an interesting proposal. Gower’s idea for presenting Best Song nominee “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” included bringing a full marching band on stage. Kelly James M.A. ’56, associate director, and John Hayes, assistant to the director of bands, took responsibility for the Oscars performance. UCLA graduate student Lar Best adapted the music. “We got the dimensions of the stage,” Hayes recalls. “Right outside Schoenberg, we marked down in chalk and tape where everything was, and on Fridays we rehearsed out there.” Champion’s original plan had been to have the UCLA Band march on stage and for the Academy Awards orchestra to play the music. The day before the ceremony, Champion had scheduled a three-hour dress rehearsal with the UCLA Band, actress/dancer Paula Kelly and the full orchestra. “We went through the number once while Mr. Champion and Paula Kelly watched,” Hayes says. “Then we went through it twice with her. It took about a half-hour. Then Mr. Champion came on stage and said, ‘This is costing me a fortune, but I think we’re done. This is perfect.’ He liked how we sounded so we played for the show.” The following night, on April 14, 1969, the UCLA Band marched on stage for more than 20 million viewers in 37 countries (it was the first international telecast) and into the pages of entertainment history as the first college marching band to perform on stage at the Academy Awards and to perform in the newly opened Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. For the UCLA Band, it was just the latest in a long string of film and television appearances that stretch as far back as the 1920s. The UCLA Band began as a 50-piece ROTC unit in 1925 under the direction of W.G. Powell. An informal student-run pep band, directed by Joe Reger '28, also existed to play at various events. (Oh, and the winner of Best Original Song was …. “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair.)
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