Northeast Michigan Oral History and Historic Photograph Archive

A. K. Best Interview

Description

Oral Interview Part 1

Oral Interview Part 1

Transcription

CK: This is Cindy Kus interviewing A.K. Best for the first time on June 27th at the Alpena Public Library as part of the library's Oral History Program. A.K. was a music instructor and band director in Alpena before moving to Boulder, Colorado. He was honored for his role as an educator in a program put on by the Alpena Symphony Orchestra yesterday. And, ah, we are fortunate to have him here with us while he is in town, talking to us about his time in Alpena and the music department that he taught in. Thank you, A.K. for being here. Perhaps we can start out with you giving us a little background on yourself. How, how you, it is that you came to Alpena, where you came from. 

AKB: First of all it's a pleasure to be here, Cindy. Ah, I spent 17 years here; some of the best years of my life were here. I raised three daughters here. It's a perfect place to raise daughters. I was lucky to have some wonderful students; highly talented students who made me look pretty good. I came here from Iowa. I was teaching in a small consolidated school near Des Moines, who were absorbing a rapid growth. The area they absorbed from, the parents were all at least one degree of college. Which made up 80% of my band program. My superintendent came to me one day and said, ah, "A.K., the Des Moines system is going to take back the housing development and you are gonna lose 80% of your program. I'll help you find a job. We don't want to see you go; but you need to know what it is going to be like." And he did. Signed up with a music teacher's placement agency out of Chicago, I looked at a few places, and Alpena sounded intriguing-the first County School system in the state. Dr. John Brubaker was the new superintendent and I liked what he had to say so I came up and interviewed.
 
CK: What year was this?

AKB: 1963, I think.

CK: There was so much going on at that time in history. 

AB: Yeah, yeah. And that's how I got here. Ah, and I think I got the job mainly, not because I was such a good teacher, it was because part of my Masters Degree work was in music curriculum. I wrote music curriculum for kindergarten through 12th grade that included instrumental and vocal music. It 's still being used to this day in the Des Moines Public School System. 

CK: That's impressive. 

AB: I'm really pleased with that. I recently learned that. Ah, then when I learned this was the first county-wide system in the state, and we had schools, in the, elementary schools in the county with no general music program, my music curriculum plan- beginning band was at the 9th grade level. String players were taking private lessons. At one time, and the program developed wonderfully, we had enough teachers, 
enough teachers to cover all the elementaries, in general music and enough teachers to cover all the elementary in instrumental music. We had beginning band in the elementary, we had beginning orchestra in elementary, we had two junior highs. All those people who did all that wonderful work, sent those talented kids to me in a three -year high school. And I got to look really good! I had, I was on a white horse, on a rose-lined trail, and I loved what I was doing. And my kids loved being here. The teaching staff at that time, maybe it still is- the teaching staff at that time was the best I've ever experienced. The camadaraderie in the teacher's lounge. There's the famous E House lounge, where we would go and try to insult each other and give comebacks. We developed a camadaraderie there that was a tight-knit group and everybody supported everybody. 

CK: And this was at the, at this point...

AKB: The new high school.

CK: Ok, so that would have been after you were here for a few years. 

AKB: Oh yeah, yeah. I started out at what was the old high school and they had a music building, which was interesting because it was built for broadcast. The vocal room was on one end and the band room was on the other. In between the two rooms was 18 inches of sand. 

CK: Oh my goodness. 

AKB: And it was wired to broadcast, radio broadcast. There were microphone hookups in the wall. 


CK: What did they use it for? 

AKB: I don't know that they ever used it; but it was built for that. 
CK: That's fascinating! 

AKB: The acoustics...and then it, it got dozed down. And I thought, "That's a sad thing," it could have been used by the radio station maybe. Who knows? Ah.... 

CK: So you- ok, so that was, you began there...

AKB: Sort of a layered explanation of how I got here. 

CK: Right. 

AKB: And then, we had the new high school. And one of the best lines I've ever heard came from Bill Finch, the superin, ah, the principal of the High School at the time. The day we moved into the new high school, a very strenuous day for any 
administrator. How are things gonna go? What's gonna fall apart? What did we forget? What didn't we do? I met Bill Finch in the hallway in front of his office and he looked at me and he says, "Well, no sense worrying about it, nothing's going to turn out right anyway. " I shook his hand and said, "Welcome to the club." It went smooth. They had done a wonderful job of preparing the students and the staff in getting everything ready and the shift was like getting into a brand new car. And we had a wonderful program there, ah-I was the band director and orchestra director. We had a choir director. 

CK: Who was that?

AKB: Emmet Heiberg, at he time.

 CK: Ok. 

AKB: Ah. Then we had two bands, three bands, I think, an orchestra, and I started a stage band. So, I was, those, I had five or six classes, straight, no break. We did, however, were granted 20 minutes for lunch. Twenty minutes to inhale lunch and go back to work. 

CK: Well, let's go back to the stage band, because I'm just, could you tell me what that is? 

AKB: Its ah, you've heard the big bands on the, on the radio?

CK: Mmhuh.

AKB: Gene Krupa, Woody Herman, Les Brown? Big band- big dance band type. 

CK: Oh that's great. And was that a first? 

AKB: Yes it was. And I did it because not everybody in music is going to be a classical musician. There are kids who are interested in jazz and pop and dance. And if you're going to be in the public school music, you have to remember what you are doing. You're preparing kids to go off into life and say, "I like that piece of music because..." and give a valid reason. That's why every football game was a different set of music, memorized. A different set of charts, memorized. We gave, we used to call it a Christmas concert, but then it was illegal. We called it "Winter Concert". I tried to slip in the same music; because there were a lot of Christians. And then we did what I call my "Educational Concert". And we played heavy music. We played symphonies that were transcribed for band. I wanted the students to understand what Beethoven was like. Understand, what's Bach like. We hit every era of music by the time they graduated. You can't do that anymore; because now we have contests and festivals. And no one goes to those and try to get a 2. You want to get a 1. So you learn one half-time show in three songs. And you do that all through the football season. 
CK: So there range is so much smaller. 

AKB: During the concert season, they learn really well, three songs. When they leave, the whole purpose, it seems to me- music is not a competitive sport. 

CK: No, no it's not, but it has become that it sounds like. 

AKB: It has. And it drives me silly because the contests drive the community support, they drive the interest in the program, the board gives them the money, the trophy case gets a trophy, the band director gets the laurels, what do the kids get? No music education. 

CK: And that's tragic. 

AKB: It is tragic! And there are some things as a music teacher you can control; but there are many things you cannot. One's the millage. You can hobnob for that; you can play politic for that. You're pretty much not in control, until you open the door and your kids come into your rehearsal room, you're in control for that hour. As far as the program's concerned, everybody else is in control. I have a very good friend who's a fly fisherman and a writer, who writes wonderful books, and his great line about control is "all the wrong people are in charge." 

CK: Well, 

AKB: So that's kind of a brief layered, philosophical rant. And I wanted to say that, because I am sorry to see where music education is going. 

CK: Is that across the board? We're talking about Alpena right now; but is that... 

AKB: Nationwide. It started in the South where they don't have snow. They can have the marching band out all year. 


CK: Okay. 

AKB: The original festivals and contests didn't originate in schools. It was the city bands in Europe who used to have contests to see which town had the best band. I can understand that.

CK: Mmhuh. 

AKB: That's a good idea. Because they've already had music education. They understand what they're doing. We are graduating kids now who have never heard or who've never played a Beethoven Symphony. Even though it was written for symphony, you can buy the transcription for band. That's the only way that kids can get to play 'em. They've never played Norman Dello Jollo, another famous American composer. So how can we say we have a music education, as the mayor so boldly 
stated? The school is providing a music education for all of its students- it's not. And that's, that's sad; because I remember vividly what it was...and I understand, music always gets kicked around and music program's get sliced; but they never go away. This one is almost gone. No orchestra- that's inconceivable to me. Not every kid wants to play a trumpet or a clarinet, there are some who would really like to learn to play the damned violin. Why would you, why would anybody say, "this little group of students is less important than everybody else." That's discrimination. In it's highest, most terrible form. You kids don't count because you want to take music. Come on! When you turn on your TV tonight you're gonna hear music, and those kids were in the public schools someplace at one time. Not everybody can go or afford to go to Interlochen. Which, by the way, is marvelous if you can do it. 

CK: I was excited to see yesterday that there were a couple of ... 

AKB: Yes and two of them are students of my former student- Mike Moors was their teacher. 

CK: Yes. And he was one of your students? 

AKB: He was one of my students. I've had, Mike wasn't one of these, but I've had students who were expelled from school, but never missed a band rehearsal. When they walked in the door, I looked the other way and then I didn't have to say I saw them. And they've all come back to me and thanked me. I'm going to break down a little here. They thanked me for keeping them in school, because of the band. Damn it! Why would you take that away from a student? Even one- let alone a class full? Every- when I went to school at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, it was drilled into us that every child is unique. No one was more unique than the other. 

CK: Yes. What you are saying makes so much sense to me. I'm a teacher myself- we all learn differently, we all approach life differently, 

AKB: Yes. 

CK: And why should, why should, one person have more opportunity than anyone else? 

AKB: Yeah, it should be, that's unfair, it's discriminatory. And we've been a discriminatory nation since the beginning. We came in and called the most civilized people in the universe savages...and tried to slaughter 'em all. Ah, I have a thing I like to say when somebody gets in trouble, it is that everybody should be made to play third trombone at least once in there life; because if you take the third trombone out, you don't have a complete band.

Creators

Cindy Kus, Interviewer

A.K. Best

, Interviewee

Media Type

Audio

Item Type

Interviews

Description

A.K. and Jan Best moved to Alpena from Iowa in 1963. A.K.'s work in the music department of Alpena County Schools, including curriculum development, is legendary. In this interview, A.K. recounts his 17 years in Alpena and emphasizes the importance of music in the school curriculum.

Place of Publication

Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library

Date of Original

2015

Date Of Event

1963-2016

Playing Time

01:01:00

Subject(s)

Fishing
Music education
Bands (Music)
Oral histories

Personal Name(s)

Best, A. K. ; Moors, Mike ; Hart, Jim ; Rivelli, Bill ; Jubilate Sacred Singers ; Herman, Woody

Corporate Name(s)

Alpena High School ; Des Moines Public School System ; Drake University ; Boulder City Band ; Stan Kenton Band

Collection

Musicians of Northeast Michigan

Language of Item

English

Geographic Coverage

Alpena

Michigan, United States

Latitude: 45.06168 Longitude: -83.43275
Boulder

Colorado, United States

Latitude: 40.01499 Longitude: -105.27055

Copyright Statement

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Copyright Date