Northeast Michigan Oral History and Historic Photograph Archive

A. K. Best Interview

Description

Oral Interview Part 3

Oral Interview Part 3

Transcription

AK: Yes, here.


CK: Was there a set curriculum already ... 


AK: No!

CK: ...were you able to just go with it? 

AK: I kind of went with it and enlarged it. Ah, at the high school when I got here was beginning band, intermediate band, and orchestra. And so, there was no feeder program. And that's the first thing I worked on- get the music started in the elementary schools. We need general music out there. Not everybody's gonna play a horn, some are going to want to sing. But they need to know what music is, and that they, by gosh, can do it. So we had a cadre of teachers who did the general music classes and another cadre who did the instrumental. And then they came up into the junior high- Besser became two junior highs. Ah, and it was a beautiful thing to watch grow. All my theories worked. Didn't please everybody...I didn't have to do much, I let the kids' performance do the talking. 

CK: Mmhuh. 

AKB: I was out in the community a lot because like you said earlier, music is an elective- I wanted to be involved in as many things as possible that had to do with music., because I knew people who came to those meetings and those events would always be asking questions. I wanted to answer them. I want to tell you- Cindy- here's what I think a clarinet should know by the time he's a senior if he can. Always followed by if he can or if she can. That's the only way the public can understand. I think that's pretty simple. 

CK: Yes, you're kind of doing PR. 

AK: Yeah, And, ah, somebody called me legendary the other day- ah that's a bit humbling. I just was having a helluva good time. I said earlier, I was on a white horse on a rose path; because of the quality of students I got. 

CK: Well I was going to bring that up today, the legen- no, he called you the Legend- the Legend! And I thought, "Oh my gosh; because that, he, that was not the first time, perhaps it was the first time I heard those words; but in the time that I've been doing this, it's been short, I have heard your name referred to many times as the person who made the difference, and the inspiration that you gave people who continue to play music. And I think, I'm not sure what more can you say than that. It's such a, um, not, it's not just a tribute to you; but it speaks to what you, the insights you had. 

AK: I lived my father essentially. I'm going to have to use the "N" word. I'll just say the "N" word. My father played banjo, and he had a little dance band called Kenny Serenaders back in the '20's. 

CK: In Iowa? 

AKB: In Iowa. And one day when I was about eight years old, I said, "How'd you learn to play the banjo?" 

He said, "I rode my horse to town every Saturday." Town is seven miles away. He said, "I took less...listen carefully to what I'm gonna say now. I took lessons from a guy by the name of Freddy Bell. Everybody else called him the "N" word Bell. He had no idea what he taught me with those few words. It didn't matter to him. What mattered to him was he got taught... by a man who wanted to teach. When I finally got to- I went with no prejudicial ideas because there were no blacks in the area- I go to Drake; I had to go early for band rehearsal. They assign me to my room, I'll never forget, room 211 in the Student Union. I open the door with my key and there stands a black man from Nigeria. 

"Welcome to my room Ahchee!" 

I almost fainted. This man was so big. Then he held out his hand. He accepted me into his room. It's a complete 180 from most people's experience. As I got known at Drake as a pretty good sax player, and a decent human being, there's a wonderful black man, a piano player, who his span of fingers was an octave and tenth- and octave and two notes. Huge long fingers, he was also a wonderful clarinetist. 

When school's out in the spring, he would drive to Florida and play on the cruise boats. He came to me one day and he said, "A.K., ah, he took out his watch and said, I'll never get down there with my watch. I'll be stopped by a trooper and he'll say, 'hey boy, where'd you get that watch," and take it. I was trusted, and that was humbling. Somehow or other, my spirit has blessed me... with the ability...to let people see inside...whatever's in there. Ah, I feel very blessed. I feel very blessed to have the experiences I've had in my life. 

I had the most humbling experience I've ever, maybe this will give you an idea of what went on in the band room. Every year I would say to the kids, "This room is little Switzerland...what goes on in here stays in here, my office door is always open, you can come to me and talk about anything, but we never shut the office door. That's the rule, I'll never change it. " 

So, things went on like that every year, I had a lot of good kids graduate, a lot of talks in the office, "Well my mother, well my father..." You get closer to some of those kids than their own parents. 

And then, then I left, I started, and I went to Colorado and started a new career, I'm travelling all over the country and parts of the world, talking about fly-tying and fly- fishing. And I was down in Arkansas, Bull Shores - I think it's Arkansas, Bull Shoals Dam to make a discussion and a Power Point presentation about fly- fishing in Colorado. And this guy, tall guy, with a little bit of curly hair, its pretty white, came up and he had a blue yearbook in his hand. And he opened it up and he says, " You know who that drummer is?" and I said, "Yeah, that's Sue Wilson." He said, " You know who that guy standing next to her is? I said, " Oh that's Terry Briggs." 

(Extends his hand), "Hi." He said, "I need to come and tell you I did two tours of duty in Vietnam- you saved my life. You made me laugh because when I remember all the dumb stuff you said during rehearsal that kept us alert." He said, "It kept my sanity." 
He's a pretty good drummer, not outstanding. But that's another thrill of teaching. 

CK: Yes.
 
AKB: You make, you make impacts that you don't realize and all the sudden, all these years later, I think, "Oh my god, I hope I didn't ruin anybody!" (Laughs) Because there's a yin and a yang in there someplace. I haven't heard that yet...just knock on wood. 

It was ah, I would like to go back and do it all over again. 

CK: What would you do…?

AKB: It's such a good ride.

CK: Would you do anything different? 

AKB: No.
 CK: No
 
AKB: No. I worked my way through Drake playing in dance bands. Ah, I travelled all over the state... 

CK: And saxophone was you're... 

AKB: Saxophone was my state, my horn. Excuse me. I played ballrooms on the edges of the surrounding states, we played the Moose Lodge, the Elk Lodge, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, anybody who would pay the money, we'd play. At one time I played on four different bands out of Des Moines because I could sight read. Put music in front of me, I can play it. Make me stand up and take a jazz course; I'm lost. I learned to read, not to play jazz. So, my only claim to fame as a musician is, the big bands were touring the country playing ballrooms, back in the fifties. In Des Moines at the time, we had a musician's club called the Venetian Room. And, Iowa's still a dry state, you had to go to the liquor store and in front of god and the governor, sign your name that you bought a fifth of whiskey for what. You'd take it to the club; they'd put a paper on it with your number. And then you go to the club and you say I want number 355, and they charged you 25 cents for an ice cube to buy your own whiskey back. So this was the deal in those days. Woody Herman's in town. In the jam sessions after all these dance bands came... there was always a jam session at the Venetian Room afterwards. They'd last 'til five or six o'clock in the morning. And the local musicians would go sit in with the pros. It was wonderful to watch this. I 
just glowed. There's hardly anybody left, and I'm there alone, Jan couldn't come, because she had class early or something, anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm sitting at the bar alone, nursing my very last drink, because I know I can't have another, I can't drive home. Woody Herman comes and sits down right next to me! And I almost fainted. 

He said, "Are you A.K. Best?"

I said, "Yes, and by the way the band was really tight tonight." 

He said, "Well, thank you. Are you A.K. Best?" 

I said, "Yes."

"I hear you can sight read." 

I said, "Yes I can."

"Do you want a job?"

I almost fainted. And I said, "Mr. Herman..."

"Don't call me...Woody."

"I just got my damned draft notice two weeks ago." He said, "Well, good luck with that," and left. 

And for years I hated the U.S. Government, Army, the U.S. Government and anybody connected with control. You ruined my life. I could have been a big band musician. Until some years later it occurred to me they're all dead. Everybody in that band no longer...I'm still around. They all got into drugs big time. 

The kids today think they discovered marijuana. The musicians two hundred thousand years ago discovered it first. They knew it felt good to smoke it. I tried it once, and it was disappointing. My little cigars do more. So... 

CK: So do you- do you play at all anymore? 

AKB: When I left Alpena, I burned out, I was so burned out. I resigned before the school's over. I finished the year, and put on the best concert of my life called " The Collage." There was a downbeat and a cutoff. That was...everybody sang. I was Mr. Music. We had three performance instrumentals and two performance choirs. I had seventy-two public performances that year, counting all the games. That's a bit much. And I was used up. I couldn't see anything going forward, it was all down hill from there. 

CK: Who took your place? 

AKB: Jon Nichols. I think he stayed a year. So I couldn't listen to live music for two years. My wife got a job in the middle school teaching instrumental... 

CK: In Boulder? 

AKB: ... in Boulder and I couldn't go. I used to love to listen to music and fitz around in my shop, working with tools and wood and stuff, tying flies. I couldn't even listen to music doing that. 

CK: What kind of music would you listen to? 

AKB: I loved jazz and Mozart and Bach, yeah, it's peaceful and expiring, inspiring.
Ah, it took two years before I could listen. What fixed it for me though was my daughter Alisha was going to CU at the time, and the CU City Band needed an interim director. And they were having tryouts. Alisha twisted my arm so hard I had to agree. "Dad, do it for me!" (laughter) 

So I agreed. And I got over my burnout by conducting the Boulder City Band and they are all music professionals. I got my kicks back. 

CK: Well I understand you are kind, you're a legend again in a fly-fishing. You're , you're fairly well known-yes? 

AKB: Yeah, I'm a legend in a lot of people's minds. 

CK: Well, that's where it begins, yeah. 

AKB: I'm a Iowa farm boy who learned how to play the saxophone and then I couldn't afford to buy flies when I came to Alpena, so I taught myself how to tie 'em. Because the one's I could buy didn't look like anything I was seeing on the water. 

CK: Did you ever take any of the classes here? 

AKB: No.

CK: You did it all by yourself? 

AKB: I bought a fly and got a, a razor blade and carefully cut the thread to see how it was made. What goes on first and I soon learned that you start from one end and you work your way to the other. Ah, I was tying flies when I was in Alpena, there's a little Orvis shop down in Oscoda. I was tying flies for myself, because I couldn't afford to buy 'em. The little Orvis shop down in Oscoda, and the guy heard, I stopped... My advertising gimmick was to have a bunch of flies in my car and I'd stop 
with all the fly shops and I'd look to see what they were out of. I say, "I see you don't have any number 14 Adams." 

"No."

"Would you like to see the ones I have in the car?" Well, what's he gonna say, "No!" 


I'd bring 'em and he'd say, "Oh, I'll take those. What about these, are those for sale?" 

"Yeah." 

New account. He called me one day, and he said "A.K. I went to the Au Sable yesterday and forgot my fly floatant, that's a liquid that you waterproof the fly with. He said... 

CK: Fly what? 

AKB: Fly waterproof, fly floatant. 

CK: Floatant, okay. 

AKB: It's a liquid silicone that you waterproof the fly.

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

Protected by copyright: Uses other than research or private study require the permission of the rightsholder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Copyright Date