[Dixielandjazz] Tuba Raids - Are Oldster traddies to blame?

[Stephen G Barbone]

Oh, oh. There is a rash of Tuba thefts in California. Some say it is  
motivated by the growing popularity of banda, a trad form of Mexican  
music. However, perhaps it is the last stand of the old age white  
traddies that inhabit the left coast in large and vocal numbers. We'll  
know soon enough. Tip for the police: If banjo thefts increase, check  
the folks in the old age homes and check those trad bands for "new"  
instruments".

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

‘Tuba Raids’ Plague Schools in California

by Jan Lovett - NY Times - Feb 9, 2012

BELL, Calif. — When thieves broke into the high school music room here  
this week, they cut through the bolts on all the storage lockers and  
ripped two doors off their frames. But they didn’t touch the computer  
or the projector or even the trumpets.

“It was strictly a tuba raid,” said Rolph Janssen, an assistant  
principal.

Bell High School is only the most recent victim in a string of tuba  
thefts from music departments. In the last few months, dozens of brass  
sousaphones — smaller tubas used in marching bands — were taken from  
schools in Southern California.

Though the police have not made any arrests, music teachers say the  
thefts are motivated by the growing popularity of banda, a traditional  
Mexican music form in which tubas play a dominant role.

Teachers point to the targeted pattern of the burglaries: the  
expensive brass tubas and sousaphones, which cost $2,000 to $7,000,  
are pilfered, while electronics, cheaper fiberglass tubas and other  
brass instruments are usually left behind.

“Frankly, I don’t think somebody would go through all that trouble  
just to take some brass to go to the salvage lot,” said Ligia Chaves- 
Rasas, the music teacher at Bell High School. “Banda is very popular  
in this area of Southern California, and people will pay top dollar  
for a banda with a sousaphone player. Now, I have kids coming up to me  
saying they want to learn the tuba so they can be in a banda.”

Tubas are not exactly sexy instruments — they are big and awkward and  
often obscure the player’s face. But over the last decade, as banda  
music has become increasingly popular in Southern California, so has  
the tuba.

Raul Campos, a D.J. at the local public radio station KCRW, said that  
when he was growing up in Southern California, young Latinos did not  
want live 12-person bandas at their parties.

“But banda has really grown,” Mr. Campos said. “It’s like a new, cool  
trend with young people. It’s now cool to have a live band with a  
tuba, or to be a tuba player.”

As a result, sousaphones have made work in bandas more lucrative. A  
banda can make at least $3,000 for a night’s work at a wedding or  
quinceañera, said J. D. Salas, who teaches tuba at Steven F. Austin  
State University in Texas.

And the tuba player, who is often the leader of the group, usually  
gets the largest share.

At first, the thefts were confined to an area of southern Los Angeles  
County where there is a large Latino population. In recent months,  
however, farther flung schools have also been hit: four brass  
sousaphones were stolen in January from Mira Costa High School in  
Manhattan Beach, an affluent Los Angeles suburb; and Sycamore Junior  
High in Anaheim lost 20 instruments, including all its tubas, in a  
theft at the end of December that will cost the school in excess of  
$20,000.

The Los Angeles school police did not respond to requests for comment,  
but none of the instruments have been recovered.

And wherever the stolen instruments are now, the thefts have left  
local marching bands in a lurch. Some schools have secured donations  
from local businesses to help replace the missing tubas, but others  
have had to borrow instruments from nearby schools, or simply soldier  
on without sousaphones.

“It really hurt us for a while, with kids sitting in class not playing  
instruments,” said Rich Gordon, the music teacher at Sycamore Junior  
High. “And we can’t perform a concert if we don’t have any tubas.”