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Arts & Entertainment

Rockin'a Band Dream? M'town's Bruce Gallipani Rolls it Out

Gallipani's Rockit Live program at the Count Basie Theatre puts young rockers through the paces

Jack Black made the idea of teens making rock sounds famously entertaining in the film School of Rock. Taking kids with a mix of talent and lots of heart, Black’s character, Mr. Sneebly, transformed a classroom of students into a rock band. His curriculum was as unorthodoxed and rough around the edges as rock 'n’ roll itself. Yet the process of making his band sound that good was miraculous and necessarily easy for a 90 minute flick. 

Surely it isn’t that easy. And it's doubtful that, outside of Hollywood, it's even possible to get teens to that level. 

Middletown resident Bruce Gallipani, the founder and mentor behind the Rockit Live program, offered through the Count Basie’s Performing Arts Academy in Red Bank, proves the movie's concept to be both wrong and right, however. 

The mission of Rockit Live is to give kids an opportunity to play rock 'n' roll with their peers, bringing them together to perform live as a band. The program is designed around the process of taking the individual musician or singer, matching them up with mates to make a band so that they can to take their vision and magic to the stage with rockin' feasibility. The zenith of the six 90-minute rehearsals (note they do not refer to them as classes) is rocking on the Count Basie stage.

This past Sunday the stage was set for the big two-plus hour rock show that featured 56 kids in 13 bands. The song list included: Highway Star by Deep Purple, Song Remains the Same by Led Zepplin, Black or White by Michael Jackson, Dance the Night Away by Van Halen and others.

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Essentially, “the finale” was a mixed genre of what’s what from the legacy file of rock gold from past to present. Gallipani had proved what Jack Black’s Mr. Sneebly knew: that rock 'n’ roll is not only possible in the hands of kids, it’s powered up and ready for primetime. But it takes more than a few weeks of goofing around in a classroom to make a band. 

“It’s a lot of hard work,” Gallipani said, “The reason why they are that good, is because of the seriousness of the program and the bands they are in through it. It’s not like we’re saying we made them great, but it is teaching a lot of discipline.” 

And Gallipani’s Rockit Live has been rocking for six years, with many of his proteges having studied or “rehearsed” with him for years, if not the duration.

Allison LaRochelle, who Gallipani said sings Janis Joplin and brings tears to your eyes, has been with him since she was six. She is now 13. LaRochelle is something of a Rockit Live poster child, having been with Gallipani since before there was a Rockit Live. 

“I was volunteering at the elementary school that my daughters were attending, helping them out with their shows,” he said. 

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Prior to fatherhood, Gallipani had been the drummer with the band XDavis, a support act for bands like Squeeze and Culture Club. 

“We were just like just like everyone else, just trying to make it. And we did get some pretty cool tours, but that eventually came to an end.” 

When his on-the-road rocker days drew to a close, Gallipani settled into a Monday to Friday gig with the New York Times. It wasn’t until he was asked to help organize kid’s bands at the elementary school that he realized his life in music had come full circle and he was leaning on years of playing and the days of youthful inspiration when another concerned and solicitous mentor figure made his entry into the world of rock a bit easier.

“When I was a kid I was going around playing gigs with my friends and we had a mentor,” he said. “This guy named Fred Ferrara. He would just pick us up at our house, load up the car, take us to a church, rehearse, take us home. He was our driver. He was a singer. He was everything! And he was big into keeping the kids off the street.”

Gallipani credits Ferrara with the inspiration for Rockit Live, stressing how remarkable it was that Ferrara gave up so much time to his band and how important it was to them to have that mature influence during their early days of playing out.

Gallipani, in his role as mentor, formed bands out of the young players at the elementary school for two years. The experience convinced him that he could fashion his own program and working out of the Count Basie, Gallipani put together Rockit Live.

In order for a kid ages eight-16 to get into the program, they must first audition before Gallipani and a small group (two or three) of judges. Potential students should be studying an instrument (guitar, drums, bass, vocals, piano, violin, horns) outside the Rockit Live rehearsal time with another private instructor. Gallipani said, overall, he and his judges are looking for timing, technique and feeling, during the audition. For those who make it into the program an orientation class is held. 

Gallipani said one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of his job comes after students have been selected. He must divide the nearly sixty students into groups. 

“I’ll have like 55 students,” he said. “Ya know, like 12 guitarists, eight drummers, a sax player, a trumpet player, lots of vocalists, and I’m the one who sits in front of the computer for days trying to make bands.”

These days Gallipani is assisted by one of his former students, Michael Zdeb.  Gallipani calls him his right hand man. With a degree in music, one he got after leaving Rockit, Zdeb, like Gallipani before him, is giving back for what he got when he was a kid. And Gallipani is thankful for the help. Citing the difficulty he is facing balancing his full time job with his 24/7 Rockit schedule, Gallipani calls this “a rough time now.” 

“It’s really tough,” he said. “Four hours of commuting to the Times in Queens and then Rockit it in my free time and yet on the other side people are saying you should be happy you have a job, which I am, but running Rockit is becoming an everyday, all day thing for me. It is me. I need to figure out how to make Rockit my fulltime gig and the Times my part-time.”

Despite not being able to quit his weekday work yet, Gallipani is happy with the success of Rockit and said that other theaters have approached him about the program. And while some sort of franchising is appealing to Gallipani, he rejects the notion of opening the program up at another local location, particularly a theater.

"We're here," he said. "We're part of the Basie. It's as simple as that."

The group has been fortunate to find gigs outside of the Rockit Live program though as well, including playing at the 70th birthday tribute to John Lennon and opening for Southside Johnny on New Year’s Eve at the theatre.

Auditions for the spring session of Rockit Live are being held on April 2 from 10am to 6pm. Audition time is determined one week prior to the date. The application is downloadable from the organization’s website at: www.rockitforkids.org

If you'd like to be blown away by other Rockit Live performances check them out on their YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/RockitforkidsOr.

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