Age-Out
By Geoff Giordano
Jack Dagger THEN 3 NOW 3
W
Percussionist Phantom Regiment World-renowned knife thrower and performer.
hile Jack Dagger — r e a l n a m e To d d Abrams — is plying his trade as the “King of Fling,” his drum corps experience serves him with every expert throw of his knives. Born into a musical family in New Orleans in 1973, he moved to Baton Rouge in 1976. There, he began learning the intricacies of knife throwing that he has since parlayed into a high-profile career with appearances on TV shows like The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien. He did his first commercial in 1995, and he also founded the Baton Rouge Knife and A xe Throwers Club and, after moving to Los Angeles in 2003, the L.A. Daggers. While throwing knives in the backyard was a hobby, music was a family obsession. “My dad sang for the Baton Rouge Symphony Chorus and was a vocal performance major at LSU in the ’60s,” he says. “My mom played a little piano and sang real well. Whether or not we pursued music was really not an option; the only choice was how we pursued it.” Percussion, particularly snare and tenor drums, turned out to be Abrams’ focus. His high school band teacher took his players to the Drum Corps International Finals every year as a motivational tool. “One look at DCI and I thought, ‘I want do that,’ ” he recalls. He joined Louisiana Expressions (a former Open Class corps) in high school in 1990 and went on to LSU, joining Phantom Regiment in 1992 and majoring in percussion performance for two years. “It was on-the-job training at Expressions,” he recalls. “[Instructors] Troy and Ray Theaux recognized my poten-
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tial and eagerness to learn. In the beginning, I was the weakest link with the most work to do, and I’ll never forget being dragged into a private area while Ray tried for hours to get me to properly perform a double-stroke roll. That was by far the most difficult plateau in my drum training.” His experience at Phantom Regiment was just as intense. When the corps didn’t finish in the top six in 1992, “I was heartbroken,” he recalls. “It was quite a reality check that sometimes you just don’t get what you want, no matter how hard you try.” Since aging out, Abrams has tapped into his drum corps experience throughout his career as a performer. “Every movement or action in drum corps is made up of smaller parts,” he explains. “No matter what you see, I can guarantee there are 50 individual exercises that contributed to it. It’s all about the details, and simplicity of curriculum for maximum consistency.” In addition to performing, Abrams coached drum lines for a time and has been teaching knife throwing since moving to Los Angeles. “I teach students to conquer the hurdle of the basics, then it’s drill and train until their accuracy improves. I teach them how to focus through distractions and allow themselves to perform consistently well.” Abrams has appeared in thousands of performances, won world championships, and earned recognition from the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame for inventing such techniques as the Jack Knife Cucumber Slice. “I credit my experience i n b o t h E x p r e s s io n s a nd Regiment for preparing me with the work ethic and humilTodd during ity required to become a prohis Phantom fessional performer,” he says. Regiment days. “Drum corps was the first time I was part of something that was bigger than me. It is also, to date, the hardest I’ve ever worked for anything. I learned that excellence only comes to those who really put the hours into it, and nothing less. I learned that with humble and diligent work, you can do pretty much anything.”
www.dci.org
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