January 12, 2010 at 3:11 pm
My relationship with music was determined long before I was born. My mother’s father, Malcolm Scott, was a music teacher, band director, and life-long composer and arranger in Terre Haute, IN. Born in 1900, he’d gone to New York as an ambitious young musician, and while he didn’t find the success arranging that he’d hoped for, he had some wonderful experiences acting as a substitute pianist for some of the Big Bands, getting a few arranging jobs, and meeting some of his musical heroes. Convinced he’d never be able to make a living with his music in NYC, he moved back to Terre Haute, got a teaching degree and began his commitment to music as a teacher. He and my grandmother raised two children, my mom and my uncle, and they grew up to be devoted musicians themselves.
Years later, when my brother and my cousins and I were growing up, we played many instruments. None of us lived near my grandparents but Grandpa was determined we, as a family, share our musical talents. So, he began a summer ritual: each year we’d all meet in Brown County, IN to form the annual Scott Family Band. Every summer he’d compile pages and pages of sheet music he’d painstakingly arranged to suit our individual instruments and skill level, no small feat for a man in his 80’s whose eyesight was deteriorating. Each summer he alternated between taskmaster, maestro, and being our Grandpa.
We learned the art of the jam session, playing everything from “Darktown Strutters Ball” to Debussy, to the Rolling Stones. As we got older, I confess the jam sessions leaned more toward the Rolling Stones. After my grandfather died in 1993, four of us - two of my cousins, my brother and I - went to Brown County and shared one last jam session in tribute to our Grandpa.
Now, as Executive Director of the Fine Arts Society, I try to continue my tribute to Malcolm Scott every day. I know he’d be thrilled to learn my job is to help put music in people’s homes and hearts. On the day I was born, he composed a song for me and called it “Big News”. I hope I’m living up to what he had in mind for me that day.
That’s my story. What’s yours?
Megan McKinney
Executive Director
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