This is not your average high school band

I was baffled. After all, the Rangers had not won a game all year and they hadn’t even scored in more than a month. Usually that means empty stands, but not on this night. So I asked the fans in the stadium why they were all there. They turned around and in unison exclaimed, “Oh, we’re not here to see the football team; we’re here to see the band.”

And what a band it is.

The Rincon/University Marching Band has 193 members. To put that in perspective, the Pride of Arizona Marching Band at the University of Arizona has 275 members. Catalina Foothills High School has about 250 members, but that school has teacher assistants for its band director.

At Rincon/University, band director Jeff Marchant is the main man. That means Marchant has to be creative because the Tucson Unified School District doesn’t have the money that some of the suburban programs have.

Marchant is employed by University High and some 70 percent of the band comes from that school. The band started to grow under former director Brian Wolfe and before him Lew Dexter.

“Once you get to a certain band size, people just want to come here,” said Marchant. “And it seems that a lot of high-achieving kids play musical instruments.”

A few weeks ago, the Rincon/University Marching Band received the ultimate accolade, winning the Milton Nunamaker Sweepstakes Award at University of Arizona Band Day. As Marchant says, the Ranger Band was judged a “rise above” the others. It was the third time in six years that the band won the big award.

“Most of the time, some school from Phoenix walks away with it,” Marchant said. “We were actually co-winners this year. We shared the award with Corona del Sol from Phoenix.”

With growing fame comes invitations to perform, but Rincon/University has to pass on most of them because TUSD doesn’t have the money in its budget for trips, and the band’s parent booster club can only donate so much. The band recently traveled to California and the trip cost some $80,000, Marchant said.

The Ranger Band has had to decline invitations to play in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, at the USS Arizona Memorial and to play in China.

“If it wasn’t for certain tax credits, we wouldn’t have a band,” Marchant said.

As you might expect, Marchant is from a musical family. He went to Buena High School in Sierra Vista and played the trombone. He was in the UA marching band and set out to be a professional musician. He met his wife, Donna, in band at the UA. She played the clarinet.

Marchant, 50, taught music at Sabino High for eight years and is in his fourth year at Rincon/University. The Marchants’ eldest son plays trombone and percussion and their younger son plays trumpet and guitar.

People are blown away by the intricate formations Marchant designs. He learned them when he was practicing 12 hours a day with a premier drum and bugle corps as well as seminars he took at Arizona and afterward.

“I always look at myself and see what I’m deficient at. Then I’ll look for a seminar to learn more,” Marchant said.

Marchant says he’s had a few graduates go on to do great things with their respective marching bands in college. Riley Molloy is a drum major and soloist at Arizona State University and Evan Rees played with the Disneyland All-American College Band after having a leadership position with the Pride of Arizona, and is now at Arizona State University. He was also chosen for the Grammy Camp put on by the Grammy Foundation.

“We may have a number of kids who go on to play in college, but face it, the kids here, especially at University High, are extremely motivated. They came here to be engineers, doctors, and lawyers,” Marchant says.

Marchant says his band transitions from marching to concert performances after the football season. He also directs the high school jazz band.

In the spring Marchant expects some 80 band members to turn out to compete for section chairs and to be drum majors. The current drum majors are Zack Waters, a saxophone player who plans to be in a college band; Eric Zheng, an all-state alto saxophonist; and Hannah Bergmann.