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Gonzaga University Athletics

Gonzaga jazz band director faces major challenge for Sweet 16

The only thing that has Spokane more a-dither than two Gonzaga basketball teams reaching the NCAA’s Sweet 16 is how they did it.

The Bulldogs women, under first-year head coach Lisa Fortier, won their way back to the regional in Spokane, knocking off host Oregon State in a house full of hostiles.

And the Zags men laid to rest recent demons that have kept them from the tournament’s second weekend by boat-racing Iowa in Seattle, earning a ticket to Houston.

Here in Spokane, love of two is one.

So imagine how jazzed the community will get over the one Gonzaga team that’s in both tournaments.

OK, not as jazzed as it should. Because that team is the band.

Mark Few thinks his guys are taken for granted? Who stops to appreciate musicianship during a timeout in the waning seconds with the score tied? But let a trumpet player mis-lip a note or a Taylor Swift song make the playlist and Twitter will overflow in snark from Tin Ear Nation.

All because some future engineers and doctors armed with horns and drums are trying to rise above the noise and confusion.

And come tournament time, the NCAA doesn’t force the basketball teams to play 3-on-5. Bands are capped at 30 players, including conductors – or about a third the size of the Bulldog Band’s membership. Split-squadding takes some gusto out of the tunes, but then having to be at two sites at least allows more musicians to be a part of March Brassness.

On Monday, David Fague was back in his office trying to assemble the travel band for Houston and the home combo in Spokane – juggling instrumentation, hoping for understanding professors and nursing sore thumbs from sending out 95 texts to college kids with few replies.

“People used to answer their phones, right?” he said. “And check email?”

So, band members: call him, maybe?

Fague, a 2004 Gonzaga grad, returned in 2008 to direct jazz ensembles and teach jazz history and improv. And yet “the most complicated grade sheet of anything I do” involves the band, as postseason travel is based on regular-season attendance.

See, this is an all-volunteer army. Kara Brown, the student director who handled the Corvallis ensemble and doubled on trombone, estimated just “five or six” music majors are part of the entire band. This can also lead to issues in balance and repertoire when divvying up two teams.

“Let’s just say the louder instruments are the ones we need most,” Fague said.

Trumpets, trombones, baritones, mellophones.

And cowbell.

Other than Kyle Wiltjer, the hit of the Seattle site may have been Shane Derrick. The junior from Redmond really explores the space on “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” and his work is happily derivative of the legendary “More Cowbell” sketch from “Saturday Night Live.” It was the first arrangement Fague ever wrote for the band and he threatens to let his work fade away.

Hey, don’t write yourself off yet. It’s a winner.

“I like going into the middle of the stands, playing it like Will Ferrell – just maybe not with the curly hair and belly hanging out and aviators,” Derrick said. “And I don’t want to separate myself from the band, but people really like the cowbell guy.

“Following the Iowa game, a fan came down and handed me a ‘More Cowbell’ shirt and said, ‘I saw it at a store and thought you should have it.’ ”

Fague also winces at playing “two of the worst songs ever written” – the medley of “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Call Me Maybe.” So why do they still include it?

“Because the students love to sing along,” he said. “This isn’t a concert – we’re there to make a party.”

He knows how. Fague moonlights on sax with the Nicole Lewis Band, the Rhythm Dawgs and the Hot Club of Spokane. He doesn’t turn into the “Whiplash” guy in the classroom, either – he hasn’t seen the movie. But he endured in-your-face instructors in grad school and didn’t have his spirit crushed.

“It made me a better player,” he said.

But better playing isn’t always what the Bulldog Band aspires to.

“We may not be the best sounding band,” Derrick said, “but we have the most fun. We draw people who maybe played clarinet in fifth grade and pick up the sax to be in the band. And we’re huge basketball fans.”

So they chant at opposing foul shooters and do the phony shot-clock countdown.

“And when the other band plays,” Brown said, “we’ll dance along and sing.”

Fague thinks the musicianship will improve with the 2018 completion of a new performing arts building that “is going to double our majors, easy.

“We’re still ‘little Gonzaga’ in some areas,” he said. “Basketball isn’t, obviously. It would be nice to have 300 kids to choose from and sound like Iowa’s band.”

But in the middle of this ride, sounding like Gonzaga is just about right.