NORMAL - If it's late June, it must be time for (insert loud drum corps roll here) the annual Bands of America Summer Symposium Concert Series at Illinois State University.

Or: Four nights of great music, followed by a fifth night of spectacular drum and bugle corps competition.

Except there's one fairly glaring difference this June: The Bands of America moniker, which has been in place for more than three decades, is out.

In its stead: Music for All.

Don't be alarmed, though. For all intents and purposes, it's the same symposium and series we've been accustomed to over the past 15 summers.

According to Debbie Laferty Asbill, director of marketing and communication for the organization, Bands of America Inc. merged in September 2006 with the Music for All Foundation. Both are nonprofit organizations.

"We took the name and re-branded the parent organization as Music for All Inc.," says Asbill. "We then re-branded some of our events as Music for All events if their programming extended beyond bands. Since the summer symposium includes bands and orchestra divisions, we renamed the event Music for All Summer Symposium."

According to Asbill, the Bands of America moniker still exists as a division within Music for All.

Bands of America was established in 1975, becoming a part of the Twin Cities' summer music landscape when it moved its symposium to the ISU campus in 1992. The goal of the symposium, per its official billing: "A week of creating and providing positive life-changing experiences through music for students and teachers.

Specifically, that would be about 1,600 students and 400 educators.

Though the symposium is for their eyes and ears only, the evening concert series is for everyone's sensory receptors.

Following is the complete

performance schedule:

• Monday: Yamaha Young Performing Artists, 8 p.m. Braden Auditorium, a free showcase of young musicians selected by an international panel of professional musicians. Admission is free.

• Tuesday: Synergy Brass Quintet and The Capitol Quartet, 8 p.m. Braden Auditorium, a joint concert between the brass ensemble, which has performed around the country, and the Capitol Quartet, an all-saxophone ensemble comprised of alumni of premier military bands. Tickets are $13 and $19 at the Braden box office, area Ticketmaster outlets and www.musicforall.org.

• Wednesday: Allen Vizzutti & Friends, featuring Ngudu Chancler, 8 p.m. Braden Auditorium, see accompanying interviews. Tickets, see above.

• June 28: Insolita, 8 p.m. Braden Auditorium, see accompanying interview. Tickets are $30 and $36 at the Braden box office, area Ticketmaster outlets and www.musicforall.org.

• June 29: Annual Drum Corps International (DCI) Central Illinois Summer Music Games, 7 p.m. Hancock Stadium, the popular competition among drum corps from around the country. Tickets are $20, and are available online at www.dci.org or by calling (800) 495-7469.

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Insolita serves as this year's big ticket draw

By Dan Craft | dcraft@pantagraph.com

Robert Dethier's resume is all over the map, though he himself is based in Quebec.

It reads: author/typesetter/interpreter/beater/percussionist/arranger.

Beater?

Typesetter?

What could any of this have to do with the big-ticket ($30/$36) attraction at this year's Music for All (formerly Bands of America) Summer Symposium Concert Series?

Quite a bit, actually, since Dethier is the main creative force behind the world beat fantasia dubbed Insolita, making its U.S. premiere at 8 p.m. June 28 in Illinois State University's Braden Auditorium.

In his native Canada, he is perhaps best known as the leader of the rock trio RMD, which prospered through the '90s. But his credits also include a stint writing songs for Cirque du Soleil.

If you ask him to define his role in the percussion spectacle that is Insolita, he keeps adding layers to it.

"I play the lead character," he begins, then adds, "I composed the songs, I wrote the show, I'm the director, I choreographed it."

Since there are 13 other cast members, he doesn't claim to play those roles, too.

But, clearly, Insolita is his baby.

Though his Quebecois occasionally is at odds with getting his creative concepts across in English, Dethier calls Insolita "a show about the four elements - earth, wind, water and fire - and about Mother Earth, too."

The official Music for All concert brochure bills it as "a World Beat spectacular, combining percussionists, singers, dancers, instrumentalists and choreography to create an incredible musical dimension mixing the music of Brazil, Latin America and the Middle East."

Dethier (pronounced "DETH-yea") doesn't argue with any of that, though he admits it doesn't get the production's narrative emphasis across, in which the four elements are often at odds with one another, vying for supremacy until equilibrium and harmony are achieved.

He says the show is first and foremost a percussive affair, with the beat always at the forefront. The percussion is achieved through both traditional instrumentation and off-the-wall items including garbage, pieces of metal and, representing one of those four elements, water (via a large aquarium tank).

"We drum on everything!"

Sounds like, say, "Stomp" to you?

"I've been inspired by 'Stomp' and Cirque du Soleil," he admits. "But Insolita is not those shows."

Since it incorporates vocal performances, songs and a battery of multi-media elements, along with the anything-goes percussion, he dismisses the "Stomp" comparison.

As for Cirque - nothing doing.

Instead, he talks about the general theme of elemental harmony being worked out through the drumming, the singing, the dancing, the beating and the contests being waged between earth, wind, water and fire.

"Every element tries to become a star," he explains. "Their egos grow bigger and bigger."

Dethier portrays a character named Solita, "who represents energy, both bad and good."

If all of this sounds a little vague in the concept department, especially as a primarily French-speaking artist tries to translate his ideas into English, how about something a little more down to earth (not mention, wind, water and fire)?

"It's very spectacular, with a lot of color and a great fusion of world beat music."

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Allen Vizzutti & Friends to perform

By Dan Craft | dcraft@pantagraph.com

Unless you're a jazz junkie, you may not recognize their names.

But we're pretty certain you'd recognize their sounds.

For example, one of the most instantly identifiable rhythmic riffs of the '80s - the drum-driven intro to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" - was laid down by drummer-percussionist Ndugu (pronounced "En-Doo-goo") Chancler.

And not just "Billie Jean," but also all the other hits on "Thriller," one of the biggest-selling albums of all time.

Meanwhile, if you were a faithful viewer of "The Tonight Show" back in the early '80s, chances are you encountered trumpeter Allen Vizzutti sitting in with Doc Severinsen's "Tonight Show" orchestra, per his status as one of Doc's friends and protégés.

If not that, you've certainly heard his horn penetrating the sonic soundscapes of movies like "Back to the Future," "The Black Stallion," "Rocky II," "10" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

In an intriguing intersection at this year's Music for All (formerly Bands of America) Summer Symposium Concert Series, Vizzutti and Ndugu will physically cross paths for the first time in Wednesday night's Allen Vizzutti & Friends concert in Braden Auditorium (8 p.m., tickets $13 and $19).

This is all most interesting, since the careers of both men have run parallel, more or less, for 30 years. Neither man seemed fazed at all by the fact they won't be meeting each other until the one-night rehearsal they get before Wednesday's show.

The concert will feature the original compositions of Vizzutti, renowned for both his technique as a jazz musician and his skills as a composer.

"While the music is jazz-influenced, it's definitely a mix of rock, fusion and Latin," says Vizzutti. "It should be a lot of fun. Having played there before, I know the student population attending the seminar is really enthusiastic and very supportive of all kinds of music. It really is uplifting to play for them, so I thought we'd do something more contemporary sounding."

Chancler, in a separate interview, also has deep Bands of America roots. "I'm old school," he laughs from his perch at a Starbucks somewhere on the West Coast. "So I still call it Bands of America" (as opposed to its new moniker, Music for All).

Like Vizzutti, Chancler is famous among his peers for both his percussive technique and his prowess as a composer producer and educator.

He sees collaborating with a musician right out of the gate as a welcome challenge. "By being taken out of the comfort zone and having not played before with any of these guys … that makes it more interesting, more stimulating to me as a musician."

Besides, he notes, going into something cold was part and parcel of his life as a session drummer back in the '70s and '80s, when he was playing for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson.

"Every day I went to work, I didn't know who I'd be playing with," he laughs.

So when producer Quincy Jones requested his rhythmic services for the "Thriller" recording sessions, Chancler knew a Michael Jackson album was involved. But he never could have guessed it would emerge one of THE albums of all time.

"When Quincy calls, you jump," he recalls. "So I jumped."

Chancler's drumming is all over "Thriller," with perhaps "Billie Jean's" deliberate beat the most memorable. Who gets the credit for the album's polished sound?

"It was Quincy's production: He directed the musicians and assembled the team, like the captain of the ship. He made all the decisions that were pivotal. As great a creative force as Michael was, the whole project came out the way it did because of Quincy."

If Jones was an important force in helping shape Chancler's early career, so, too, was the legendary Severinsen on behalf of Vizzutti.

"I met him back when I was around 15, when he was a guest soloist at my high school," Vizzutti recalls. "Two years later, he came back, and then invited me to his house back East."

Clearly, the leader of one of America's best-known big bands of the '60s through the '80s was impressed by the young Vizzutti as a teen trumpeter.

At the time, "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" was still based in New York, and Vizzutti got to visit the set under Severinsen's auspices.

He later became one of the select group of regular substitutes for absentee band members, appearing on the show around five to 10 times per month.

"We've had a working relationship ever since … he's been a mentor and a colleague and a teacher," Vizzutti says, noting the last time they performed together was around two years ago. Severinsen, 80, who performed in Decatur this past spring, has announced that his current tour is his last.

Does Vizzutti see himself hanging in there for that long?

Most likely, he predicts.

"It's like a drug addiction," he says. "And it's really, really nice to thoroughly enjoy your work, maintaining that warm feeling of communicating with other human beings on the planet in a way that is really only available through music."