The Wayne Pettie Mentor & Life Coach Award

Wayne Pettie

“After I finished playing with Dal, I played in an ‘oom-pah pah’ band down at the old CNR train station at Terminal and Main Street. That was with George Le Flesch and Henry Ohman. George had all these charts from LA. They were fun to play! It was the best-paying gig in town at the time.”

“I joined in 1966! I was playing in the Vancouver Youth Orchestra. Al Lehtonen was also playing in the youth orchestra. Al says to me,

“Why don’t you come out to the Kitsilano Boys’ band?”

I was getting kind of bored with the youth orchestra. Al was already in the Kits band. Also, the directors of the youth orchestra told me to attend band camp, if I wanted to progress in the orchestra. That didn’t sound very interesting to me, so I thought I would try Kits.

My brother George and I went together. George, who was fearless, sat in the first chair trombone. I, on the other hand, tried to make myself invisible by sitting in the very last chair of trumpets (second row). Mr. Delamont seemed to enjoy ‘knocking you down a peg or two’ if you showed too much confidence, so naturally he picked on George. George had a big, powerful sound but struggled through the difficult,

technical solo that Mr. D had chosen for him. Sight-reading wasn’t his forte at this time due to practicing symphonic repertoire over and over and having no time for private instruction. Eventually, he got to me and said,

“Come up here!” (Front row trumpets) “Play this!” I managed to play the piece fairly well. (At least he didn’t tear me apart). After band practice, he took me aside and said,

“We have enough trumpets for the European trip but if you play baritone you can go.” I was ecstatic!

“You bet I’ll play baritone,” I said. This was three weeks before the 1966 trip.

George was already committed to going and working in the forestry that summer, up north, so he couldn’t change his plans. I went on the 1966 trip and then again in 1968. George went on the 1968 and 1970 trips. I couldn’t go on the 1970 trip for a couple of reasons. When I came back from Europe in 1968 with the band, Dal Richards asked me to come and play in his band, every Saturday night. He hired me before I joined the union. I also had a girlfriend. I went to Columbia Junior College in 1969 and then on to UBC.

After I finished playing with Dal, I played in an ‘Oom Pah Pah’ band down at the old CNR train station at Terminal and Main Street. That was with George Le Flesch and Henry Ohlman. George had all these charts from LA. They were fun to play. They had an audition in Richmond at a hotel. They tried out several symphony musicians. Then they tried out some others, including me. At the time, it was the best-paying musical job in Vancouver, six nights a week. It lasted about two and a half years. The place could accommodate up to twelve hundred people. I had to stop playing because of an appendicitis attack. I had to go to the hospital for twelve days. Afterward, I couldn’t play very well. I put the trumpet in the case and said,

“That’s it, it’s time to teach.”

I didn’t seem to have the strength anymore. I went back and got my teaching certificate from UBC.

The first teaching job I applied for was in Port Moody. John Bayfield was the principal (Port Moody Junior Secondary), an old Kits band member. I went for an interview. There were three people firing questions at me. Finally, I said, “Thank you very much” and I got up and left. I figured I wasn’t getting that job. Then the next day, I got a telephone call telling me I had gotten the job.

The most important thing I learned was you needed to be organized and I wasn’t organized. I just flew by the seat of my pants. I was young. I figured I could handle it. I thought I knew a lot. I didn’t know hardly anything about the other instruments. I had to learn as I went along. The brass instruments weren’t too bad, being that I was a trumpet player. But the flute, clarinet and oboe, that was another story. Most directors recommend their students take private lessons on the instruments they do not know very well, when possible.

I learned through trial and error. I did that for four years (grades eight through ten). I went out to all the elementary schools to recruit kids because there were not enough at the high school. I had to teach English as well, in the cafeteria. Band I taught in the gymnasium, while other things were going on. It was not a good situation, so I left. I had had enough, not a good experience.

Then, I went back to playing. I played twenty-six jobs

during the month of September and made fifteen hundred dollars. I realized that that was not going to work out as I had two kids.

Once I decided that only playing professionally wasn’t going to make ends meet, I applied for another teaching position. I soon got an interview for an elementary school, grades four through seven. The interview went well and the job was like a dream. I was hired to teach band at several schools in North Vancouver.

The first principal I met, at one of the schools, was a great guy. He left me alone to do my thing. That’s what I needed on my first assignment. In the end, I was covering eight schools. In the beginning, I covered three elementary schools and a high school. The junior high was a nightmare. The others were great and the kids paid attention. They liked their instruments. It was just wonderful! I was very positive. The fellow before me had been very negative. I guess I was a breath of fresh air.

I had them play some challenging pieces. At our first concert, I turned around and said to the audience,

“We did it!”

The audience laughed. I was in North Vancouver for twenty-four years. I taught in about fifteen schools in all as an itinerant. I just retired. I pulled all my kids together for concerts. It worked great.”

“Tell me about Arthur?”

“He kept me in line. I was pretty rebellious. He used to give me rides home after band practice. My parents were very supportive. I remember on the 1968 trip, I was determined to show everybody that having my parents along as chaperones was not going to interfere with my having a good time. I went out of my way to be rebellious and I was always doing things to excess. I am sure you remember.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Before we left on the 1968 trip, I was sick as a dog. My dad gave me a couple of stiff drinks, ‘gin and colins.’ It settled my stomach. I lost a lot of weight just before the trip.”

“Who are the three people who have been the greatest influence on your life?”

“I’d have to say, my parents. Stu Carpenter was another one. Talk about a guy being nasty. He made Delamont look like a choir boy. He was nasty! I had a half-hour lesson with him when I was fourteen. He had this little music shop in Burnaby across from Sears. I bought this Olds Recording trumpet. He didn’t like it, so he gave me a lecture. He always seemed to be in a bad mood. This was before Kits. I was still in the youth orchestra. I remember playing the first three notes of the Haydn Trumpet Concerto for Stu Carpenter. He says,

“That’s wrong! This is wrong! That’s no good!” He almost gave me a nervous breakdown. I had to change my embouchure but it was worth it. He corrected several problems that I had developed.

He was all business, a real taskmaster. I was actually afraid to go to a lesson. He rarely praised you for your effort. He expected nothing less than perfection. I always made sure to practice exactly what he assigned each week. I would see previous students leave in tears which would raise my level of anxiety. If you were able to persevere through the mental strain of his demeanor, you could learn a lot. I now appreciate what he taught me.

Joe DeBruycker was another influence on me. He was also into repairs as well as teaching. Stu used to get his trumpet repaired by Joe. This would be six or seven years after I took lessons from Stu. Joe says to Stu,

“Try that horn,” Stu says,

“Whose horn is it?” Joe says,

“It’s Wayne Pettie’s, that’s the one you told him he shouldn’t play, years ago,” Stu says,

“Oh, well, it’s a pretty good horn.”

It was my Olds Recording trumpet. I just really liked it, so I kept it.

Joe would come over to our house because he liked to play ping pong and so did my dad. I’d be about seventeen. We had this fridge in the house. I worked hard at my practice. How I worked was, every time I made a mistake or got frustrated, ’Wham.’ I’d hit the fridge with my elbow. There were dents all over the fridge. Mom would be in the living room listening and she would say,

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“Wham!” there goes the fridge.

Joe would come over. He and Dad would have some rum.

Joe asked,

“Have you been practicing? You sound very rough.”

I practiced all the time, so I decided to back off and only practice once every other day. I tried to focus better. Then, when I had my lesson with Joe and he would say,

“Boy, you’ve been practicing.” I’d say,

“No, I have just learned how to focus better.”

It was kind of funny how it worked but he was nurturing

RIGHT: c2007 Ron Smith, tuba Wayne Pettie, trumpet, Gregg Hurst, trumpet, Robert Fraser, trombone, Rick McVicar, drums

The ‘Sixuvus’

BOTTOM: c2005 Bob Fraser, Gary Musatto, Ron Smith, Gregg Hurst, Wayne Pettie

WAYNE PETTIE ~ 337

THE

LOST CHORD

Strawberry Fields Forever

THE LEGACY OF ARTHUR DELAMONT Book III

Christopher Best

and therefore influential, I would say.”

“A third influence?”

“My parents, of course, were a big influence. Being a part of the Kits band was a big influence. I remember later on when I played a Lion’s Football game and Stu was playing as well, I took my part up an octave because I was bored. Stu came over afterward and said, “Don’t ever tell anyone you took lessons from me.” I said to him, “Get lost!”

That was the first time I ever said a bad word to him. I never really talked to him again. He told Joe DeBruycker about this and Joe said to him,

“You deserved it.”

That was when I first started playing with Dal. After that incident with Stu, we seemed to get along better. But he got me to do things I probably never would have done on my own. So, I have to say he was really a big influence.”

“Do you remember any humorous moments in the band?”

“I remember one time marching in Penticton or Abbotsford. I had forgotten my black socks. I covered my ankles with black shoe polish and it worked!

You should talk to my brother George. He would probably remember more of those days than I did. He lives in Fraser Lake with his family. I went up to visit him a couple of years ago. I hadn’t been up there before. Great reunion!

About the Author:

I was born on November 22, 1949, St. Cecilia Day, the Patron Saint of Music in the Roman Catholic Church. For a long time, I thought this was significant until John Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. In grade three I started piano lessons and switched to the saxophone in grade five under Ron Pajala, band director at John Oliver High School in Vancouver, himself a former member of the Kitsilano Boys Band. From 1965 to 1970, I spent three wonderful summers marching through the towns and cities of England and the continent with Arthur and the Kitsilano Boys’ Band. After two years of taking a general arts education at a college in Vancouver, I became interested in languages, history, art, political science, and geography, all topics I wanted to learn more about after my trips to Europe, I went to work for a few years to ponder my future. I eventually went back to university, earning a Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of BC in 1979 and a Teaching Certification in 1980. For the next five and half years I was a music educator in Eastern Canada. Feeling restless, I left teaching and spent three years honing my writing skills in fiction novels and short stories while living in an old farmhouse in Laval, a suburb of Montreal, Canada. In 1988, I returned to Vancouver and entered the publishing business, publishing guidebooks. I later published travel magazines on Vancouver, Whistler, Aruba, and the Caribbean.

Books on the Kitsilano Boys’ Band include By Jove What A Band, Woodwinds, Brass and Glory, the Red Cape Boys, Denton Park, The Lost Chord, and The Life and Times of the Legendary Mr D.

Books by the author can all be found on the web at www.warfleetpress.com