New band director brings jazz to campus from MWSU Campus Watch on Vimeo.

The Golden Thunder marching band got a new trombonist this semester, but he doesn’t play his instrument for MSU. He directs.

Matthew Luttrell is the new director of bands and along with his new style, he brought a new up-beat marching show.

“Our show this year has five tunes to it. The first one is a hard rock tune, one of them is more of a classic rock, and then one of them is more of a ballad. Those are the three tunes by the band Chicago. The other two tunes are from the musical Chicago one of those is a swing tune and the other one is sort of a Latin number,” Luttrell says.

The show combines 1970’s era rock-ballads by the band Chicago with two pieces from the Broadway musical of the same name.

“If you ask anyone who writes for Broadway, if you talk to anyone who writes for musicals or marching band or whatever it is… they’ll tell you generally speaking that if the audience can leave the performance whistling the tune or humming the tune… if they can hear it then you’ve written a good tune. All of these tunes – all of these pieces of music – are pieces that when you leave practice you can hear them in your head,” Luttrell says.

According to students Luttrell approaches his shows with a different style than Larry Archambo, but sophomore Jason Killion says that although Luttrell is stricter he believes the band will improve under his direction.

“He has a goal set for us and he’s determined to make that goal. He’s determined to make us the best we can be,” Killion says.

“I think we’re gonna be in great shape for this first game at Cowboy’s stadium,” Luttrell says.

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