11 minute read
The Rob Arseneau Mentor & Life Coach Award
Rob Arseneau
“My dad played at the old Pantages theatre. There was a banjo player in the US named Eddy Peabody. My dad played with him at ‘Sherman Clay Music’ in Seattle. In the old days, they used to put on an act in the window to draw a crowd.
Before WWII, my dad, his name was Joe Arseneau, had three national broadcasts a day from the Hotel Vancouver.”
Rob Arseneau was also in the band when I joined. He was one of our two lead trumpet players on the 1966 band tour of Europe. Rob just started playing his trumpet again and can be found in the trumpet section of several community bands.
“How old were you when you started playing the trumpet?”
“I was ten. I started with the Vancouver Junior Symphony. I got into that through my teacher. His name was ‘Ken Hopkins.’ He also played the first trumpet with the VSO. Late in 1962, I wound up at General Gordon School. I sat down on the third chair of the Junior Kits band. Richard Christie who had brought me down, was on his way up to the senior band. He had been there already for a while. Delamont said to me “Play a B flat chord.” “I didn’t know what he was talking about. He says, “Ah, you don’t know anything!” But I kept going. In about a month, I was promoted to the senior band. Bill Ingledew, Rod Grady, and Bruce Calder were still playing in the trumpet section. Jack Wright was still playing. I was sure happy playing with all those guys. I got up to the first trumpet, behind the solo chair.
I remember in the fall of 1963, we were having a rehearsal in the basement of General Gordon School. Mr. D looks at me and says, “Take the solo.” It was Autumn Leaves. I got really nervous. After I finished, he didn’t say a word. At the end of the practice, he says, ‘You’re going to play it at the Queen Elizabeth.” For about two weeks I was terrified. I had nightmares. When it was over I said, “I’m never going to do that again.” I suffered badly from nerves. After the 1962 trip, a lot of the veteran trumpets left the band. I was just a little guy coming up and I think that is why he had me play the solo.
In 1964, we competed in the Kiwanis Music Festival. That same festival, I was with another group, the Vancouver Junior Symphony Brass Ensemble. It was led by ‘Robert Creech.’ He was the 1st French horn player in the VSO. Just brilliant! The adjudication gave us 94 points. I didn’t need to play any solos, just blend in. I saw Delamont after and he said, “Well Robert that was really something!” For him to say that, that was really something. Then the trip to Europe, in 1966 came along.
When I first joined the band in the fall of 1962, I was playing football with an original league over at Chaldeott Park.
I remember coming in about ten minutes late for a sectional rehearsal at Mr. D’s house on 4th Avenue. He says, “You’re late!” I said, “I am sorry. I just came from a football game.” He says, “No, that won’t do. You’ll have to choose. ”There was no choice. I knew I wasn’t going to be a football player.
I remember the trumpet trios of the 1966 trip. There was Richard Christie, myself, and Doug Tuck. We were good but nothing like Arnie Chycoski or Donny Clark. Arnie is a legend and of course Roy Johnston from the most famous bands of the thirties, who I had the privilege of meeting.
I remember Terry Cromie who played trombone. His dad was Don Cromie, who had been in the band in the thirties. Terry had this 1940 Ford hot rod. We looked up to these guys. Richard fell in Calgary in 1964 and hurt himself. We were staying at Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry base. He was swinging on the beds and the beds slid on the floor. He hit his head and he was sent home.
I remember in Paris, in 1966, Bryan MacKinnon had food poisoning. He wound up in the hospital. He had eaten some fish soup and he was allergic to fish. We were staying at the Lycee St. Louis, on the Boulevard St. Michel, on the left bank.
My dad played at the old Pantages theatre. There was a banjo player in the US named ‘Eddy Peabody.’ My dad played with him at ‘Sherman Clay Music’ in Seattle. In the old days, they used to put on an act in the window to draw a crowd. Before WWII, my dad, name was Joe Arseneau, played and broadcasted on live radio CJOR, CKWX, and CKMO. He could be heard all over Canada and along the US
1966 Kits Band Tour ~ Scenes of Paris
ABOVE: 1966 Four boys on a statue in Europe. (These four photos courtesy of Rob Arseneau)
BELOW: 1966 Waiting at an airport.
ABOVE: 1966 Richard Christie in Paris
BELOW: 1966 The band in Europe. Malcolm Brodie is wearing the blue jeans.
border. He knew Arthur. He was very pleased when I joined the Kits band. My dad was a very quiet person. He had a bad war. He never really got going again. In 1959, he was offered a job playing in Hawaii but didn’t take it. He had been a child prodigy on violin but then he switched to the banjo. It broke my grandfather’s heart!”
“Did he ever mention Arthur?”
“All he said was when I told him that I had joined the Kits band,
“He’s about the best there is!”
The Kits band was very famous. My mom and dad met at the Barclay Manor when it was a boarding house in the west end, in the early 1930s. They knew Arthur’s band.
I told everybody in my taxi about the reunion concert next summer. Everyone is interested. It is our history.”
“What do you recall about the 1966 band?”
“It was a cracker-jack band. They all had that incredible vitality. It’s almost like a dream and we were just boys!”
“In the 1930s and 1950s, his bands could play better than most adult bands.”
“That’s true!”
“Do you remember anything else about the 1966 trip?”
“One of the best concerts we played on that tour was at the Kursaal Ballroom in Southend-on-Sea. Dartmouth brings back a lot of good memories as well.“
“Anything about any of the fellows you want to say?”
“Dave McKenzie was our manager of course. He came back and managed Arthur’s 1968 and 1970 trips as well. I remember in ’67 at the Expo, Dave had to deliver a big motor yacht to someone in Montreal. It was docked at La Ronde.
Richard and I stayed a couple of nights on board. Dave was the President of the student council and Valedictorian of his graduating class at Lord Byng High School in Vancouver. He did a ‘great’ job of finding us places to stay in England on the 1966 trip. I remember the army base where we stayed in Leeds. I remember Wally got the mumps somewhere.
I was married in 1972. I went out to see Arthur in White Rock a couple of times but my life was pretty much set with family and kids on the way. I remember thinking, “I had put in my time by 1967. “ There were some good trumpet players coming up then like Wayne Pettie and Iain Petrie.
You really had to embrace what Arthur was all about if you were going to get along in the organization. I remember the first time that I saw Arthur. I didn’t think of him as an old man. He was just very handsome, with his white hair. He had grown a goatee. He was just very cool-looking.
“Did he look like Colonel Sanders?”
“No, he just had his own style. The moms all loved him. He was always very gallant around the ladies. I remember marching in the PNE parade.”
“Have you always driven a taxi?”
No, I’ve done all sorts of things. I have operated restaurants, and driven trucks. I had ‘Cafe Madelene’ up on West 10th Avenue. Vera used to come in for brunch regularly with some lady friends. That was about 1986 or ‘87. The last thing I did was to help operate a bottling plant. The thread through it all is, that I never stopped playing. I haven’t played the trumpet for a while, I play mostly the guitar now.”
“How did you get reconnected with the alumni group?”
“Last summer I was running the concession stand at Kits
1966 The band performed a concert in the Kursaal Ballroom in Southend-on-Sea.
Beach and Barry Leinbach came by. So we met again after some forty years. He is a great guy, thoughtful, quiet.”
“Mr. Showboat!”
“That’s right, who would have ever thought? I went to the last concert and I saw him announcing, so, it is all good!”
“Anything else you want to add?”
I remember the memorial service for Arthur. There was a lot of emotion in that room. It was a tough one. I do not know how the guys played.”
“I was teaching band back east. I dedicated a hymn to him and played it with my senior band.”
“Afterwards, Richard and Malcolm Brodie and a couple of others, we all went down to ‘Bridges Restaurant,’ to talk over the old days.
I remember when I joined the band, Arthur was already seventy-two or seventy-three. Then in 1966 when we marched in the Carnival parade in Southend-on-Sea, it was very long. I remember thinking, “If he can do it, I can do it!” He used to say, “Once they get to be seventeen, you can’t tell them anything!”
He used to start the boys off at a young age. Talk about a psychologist. Getting the boys to play like adults was amazing. To see the older fellows playing, when I first joined, I thought that’s how good you had to be. They seemed like men but they were only a few years older than we were. You just did it!
I remember when I was eight, I got this bugle given to me. My dad said, “You are too young to start.” I could actually play it, so I guess it came easy. I could just do it. It was more a matter of me keeping myself under control. Al Lehtonen
ABOVE: 1966 Left to Right Graeme Montieth, Tony Negrin, Rob Arseneau, Barry Leinbach, Keith Christie, and Mr. D with two CP Air stewardesses upon departure for Europe. BELOW: 2008 Rob with his grandchildren.
(Wally) studied with ‘Ken Hopkins as well. He only had about four students at the time. There was a brother and a sister who were blind. The girl played euphonium and the boy played trumpet. They were unbelievable, I would go early just to hear them, all memorized, only sixteen or seventeen years old.
“Tell me who the three people were who influenced your life the most?”
“I have to say Arthur for sure. Another person was Harry Gomez. He conducted the Vancouver Junior Symphony. He was a beautiful, gentle, gifted musician. He was older like Delamont. Those were two big influences for sure. They stand out and the third, I would say were my parents. They were older. When I turned forty, my mother was eighty-two. My father was a gifted musician. He had no business being in the army. He played in later years. He made a recording in San Francisco in 1963, with ‘Anson Weeks,’ who was playing at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Anson’s dad had led the band there for over thirty years - ‘Top of the Mark.’ He was an institution. He was hired to play a session, very talented!
I’m happy to say, I was able to save the masters and I had the entire session put on to CD, so his great-grandchildren can hear echoes of his brilliance.”
ABOVE: The Four Deuces, L to R, Joe Arseneau, Arnold Moller, Curly Kemp, and Ray Norris at CKWX
