Early Wednesday morning, a truck load with 3,300 pounds of music pulled up to a Mid-City computer storage facility.
Four sweaty staffers from the Tipitina's Foundation, the nonprofit organization philanthropic subdivision of the famed euphony club, exhausted the day unpacking, sorting and labeling brass, woodwinds, drums and more.
"There's a little bit of everything, " said the foundation's Lauren Cangelosi, flanked by 72 black trumpet cases well-endowed 10 high. "Cellos, violins, violas, sousaphones, clarinets, baritone horn saxophones. You name it, we've got it."
Hand-written screening tape labels denoted each instrument's destination: One of 28 local elementary, middle and high schools, public and private, this year's beneficiaries of the Tipitina's Foundation's Instruments A Comin' program.
Since its 2002 inception, Instruments A Comin' has distributed $1.8 million worth of gear to more than 50 area schools. Tonight Tipitina's hosts the "Instruments Have Come!" street festival and presentation ceremony to celebrate the arrival of the 2008 allotment of 488 instruments.
Starting at 6 p.m., the St. Augustine, McDonogh 35 and Edna Karr high school day bands -- all participants in the program -- take o'er the recession of Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas for a free march band "struggle." At 8 p.m., the party moves inside for a ticketed point featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Rebirth Brass Band.
Instruments A Comin' is one of the foundation's four main initiatives, along with a music byplay internship program, a weekly Sunday afternoon workshop for students and a statewide system of musician cooperative offices.
The first Instruments A Comin' evolved from an earlier Injuns A Comin' Mardi Gras Indian benefit. It is financed principally by a marathon benefit concert with local and national musicians staged the Monday between New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival weekends. Corporate sponsors, a silent vendue and private donors augment the total. This year, the Emeril Lagasse Foundation donated $25,000 earmarked for drums and percussion.
Jimmy Glickman of the New Orleans Music Exchange assists the foundation in buying instruments from Jupiter, Stagg and other manufacturers and distributors at wholesale prices. The program's results ar direct and immediate, as instruments are placed in the workforce of students eager to play.
"It's the feel-good event of what we do, " Cangelosi said.
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Even ahead Hurricane Katrina, the motive for new equipment was acute in band programs throughout the chronically underfunded Orleans Parish public schoolhouse system.
"There was a jape among lot directors that, 'We haven't gotten new instruments since the '70s, ' " said Barbara Schuler, the music, art and foreign nomenclature coordinator for the Orleans Parish Recovery School District.
After Katrina, parking brake funding helped the Recovery School District restock bands with basic gear. But the district's latest budget contains no money for instruments, Schuler said, and individual schools struggle to pay level for metal drum heads, mouthpieces and other replacement parts.
Sousaphones, the tuba-like horns that anchor a band's bottom end, rear cost several thousand dollars apiece.
"Without Tipitina's help, I wouldn't have sousaphones, " aforesaid McDonogh 35 band director David Jefferson. "We would be nowhere. The help that Tipitina's gave us allowed us to go out and do other things to keep building a program."
Edna Karr band director John Summers said the Tipitina's donation was "a ministration, " allowing him to focus on other needs, such as set uniforms and sheet music.
"I can't explain how helpful it's been, " Summers said. "When you're trying to get certain brass and woodwind instruments that ar almost impossible to have because of school arrangement finances . . . thanks to Tip's we didn't have to kill ourselves worrying."
Donations of individual instruments trickle in, but the Tipitina's Foundation is the Recovery School District's main source of new instruments, Schuler aforementioned. "It's invaluable. The instruments are quality, and brand new. We couldn't get them on our possess -- there's no way. And the foundation does a good job of spreading the wealth around to different schools."
After Katrina, schools of every description struggled to rebuild music programs. Floodwaters not simply destroyed the famed St. Augustine Marching 100's band room on St. Bernard Avenue, merely also its uniforms and instruments.
"We had absolutely no instruments at all. Zero, " said band director Virgil Tiller, himself a former Marching hundred drum major. "It's hard to set about a programme like the Marching one C with zero instruments."
In the three age since Katrina, Tiller aforesaid, the Tipitina's Foundation has supplied 60 percent of St. Aug's instruments, including eight sousaphones. Thanks in large parting to Tipitina's, Tiller aforementioned, the Marching 100 proudly stepped out for the 2006 Carnival season with the MAX Band, a combination of the St. Aug, St. Mary's Academy and Xavier Preparatory school bands.
"St. Aug is the city's isthmus, " Tiller aforementioned. "Just to see us on the streets . . . that meant a lot to people, that we were back."
Without the foundation's support, "we could have arrange a band out there, but it wouldn't have been the quality it was that first year. And it's getting wagerer every year. New instruments do wonders. I'm very thankful to the foundation garment."
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The Instruments A Comin' program has not been without glitches. Years agone, some students attempted to pawn donated instruments. Now a certificate code is affixed to all cogwheel. The foundation retains ownership, and requires schools to submit a detailed armory of antecedently donated ironware before considering requests for more.
And non all wishes are given. One band director's request for a $40,000 set of timpani was declined. "We require people to be realistic, " Cangelosi said.
But the foundation attempts to fit schools' extra needs. Fiberglass sousaphones are considerably less expensive -- and lighter -- than brass or silver instruments. But the St. Aug Marching century is known for its shiny face. Because of the band's high profile, both locally and across the nation, they got their brass.
A five-figure contribution from rock and roll star Tom Petty outfitted the ninth Ward's Carver High School band with its requested silver gear mechanism. In 2007, Petty recorded "I'm Walkin' " for the Tipitina's Foundation benefit CD "Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino." Petty's manager later called to say the rocker besides wanted to donate $40,000 from the sale of custom printed photos.
"They wanted the money to go to something as specific as possible, " cornerstone director Bill Taylor aforesaid. "We came up with the idea of choosing one school, Carver, and having the money go there. (The Petty camp) got real excited about that."
If a school drops its band program -- as did Booker T. Washington High School, a beneficiary of the first Instruments A Comin', and Livingston High School, which is nowadays only eighth grade -- the origination reclaims its instruments and transfers them to other schools.
Tipitina's has a vested interest in perpetuating the city's musical culture; some recipients of instruments may become professional musicians.
But Instruments A Comin' benefits students, and the city, in other slipway. Summers aforementioned several of his Edna Karr students have received band scholarships to college. "That's the beauty to this, " he said.
St. Aug's Tiller concurs.
"When you put a car horn in a student's workforce, you've taken him sour the street for our hours, " Tiller aforesaid. "And when he's through with (with rehearsal), he's so tired that he's sledding home and going to sleep. If every band has C kids, and you've got 15 high schools, that's 1,500 kids off the street.
"We're not simply making music. We're saving kids."
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Music writer Keith Spera canful be reached at kspera@timespicayune.com or at 504.826.3470. Comment or read past stories at nola.com/music.
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