A conversation on a Gulf of Mexico ukelele cruise is what steered Ted Grossardt to the March Madness Marching Band drum line last spring.
“I played an electronic lap drum to back up the uke players during their jam sessions” on the 2018 excursion, says the retired University of Kentucky research professor and former Kansas wheat and cattle farmer. Among those players were Grossardt’s wife, Gretchen Grossardt, and two other Lexingtonians—MMMB President Fernie Williams and his wife, MMMB tenor sax player Marguerite Williams. The four ship mates started talking.
“That led to the conversation about my joining MMMB,” says Grossardt, who joined the band as a snare player last year. “I’ve since discovered that there are several ‘closet’ ukelele players in (the group).”
Grossardt’s foray into MMMB has already given him several opportunities to hone drumming chops he last sharpened decades ago performing in both university marching band and a jazz/swing band.
“All of that turned out to be useful in MMMB, where we play all manners of music – from Tower of Power, to Simon and Garfunkel, to Sam and the Womp, to ‘Peanuts’, to ‘Star Wars’—but always with the MMMB stamp on it,” referring to MMMB Minister of the Grooves and lead snare player Tripp Bratton’s music arrangements. Grossardt credits Bratton for helping improve his snare technique.
“He’s taught me a lot of new licks in my first year with the band,” he says. “A fellow band member observed that our Sunday afternoon rehearsals are like free music master classes, which is especially true in my case.”
And Grossardt has caught on quickly. After just a few months in the band, he stood in for Bratton at three 2019 band gigs: the Great American Brass Band Festival parade in Danville and Lexington Pridefest, both in June, and September’s Oktoberfest/Mission Monday gig at Lexington’s Blue Stallion Brewery – the place where Grossardt first saw MMMB perform two years ago.
With academia and farming behind him, Grossardt says he isn’t sure what to expect as he enters what he jokingly calls the “third half” of his life. But, he adds, “so far, it appears MMMB will be an important part of it.”