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Essentials in
History
Jean Boardman
Updated: 3/29/2004 5:42:00 PM
Being the third in a series of articles, suggested by Historian Emeritus Dean Snyder, on men who, while neither champions nor presidents, have nevertheless made an impact that is still refelected in the Society as we know it today.
A Barbershopper is Born
An innocent trip back home started Jean Boardman down the slippery slope of barbershop harmony. At the Decatur (IL) Chapter's installation, Jean heard the famous Corn Belt Chorus and several of the leading Midwestern quartets. He returned to Washington DC on fire to start a chapter of his own.
Jean was becoming a familiar sight in the DC area as he strode along to work humming and singing in his rich baritone. His love and knowledge of music spanned several genres – from classical and operatic to the syncopated rag of Scott Joplin. He had sung in several male choruses and glee clubs. By the fall of 1945 he figured he knew enough barbershoppers to start a local chapter. In October, the District of Columbia Chapter kicked into life as a ‘guild of quartets' with Jean lending his bari to the chapter's first quartet, The Washington Waddlers.
The guild concept was a key part of Jean's basic approach to membership in the Society, both his own and others. To become a member of the chapter, a man had to pass a quartet audition. Jean believed that making membership an ‘earned prize' to be valued fostered a sense of pride in belonging to the chapter, and in turn led to an active and dedicated membership.
A Man of Service
What he preached, he practiced. Jean became a very active and dedicated barbershopper. During the 1940s and 1950s, he served on eleven different Society committees, chairing several; was a member of the Society's Board of Directors for three terms; and was twice a Society vice-president. He declined the presidency.
Jean's service to the Society was illuminated by his passion for social justice and harmony. In ‘real life' a domestic relations lawyer, he became one of a small group who handled divorces of socially prominent Washington residents. Yet he worked hard to reconcile family members, believing that it was far better to settle disputes than to let them tear the family apart. His commitment to equal rights led him to participate in the March on Washington in 1963.
Likewise, Jean took strong stands during his time on the Ethics and Contest & Judging committees. He helped develop and stabilize the judging process and published the rules in a small booklet, and pushed hard to make contest scores public. Jean did not confine himself to sharing his opinions with just fellow committee members. For many years he wrote the "Koby the Kobold" column in the Harmonizer. When his children were young, Jean had made up fairly tales for them, and used a folklore character – the kobold – as the ‘narrator'. In his column, Jean's humorous late night chats with Koby served to express his concerns on various issues, ranging from a tongue-in-cheek discussion of ‘the trouble with baritones' to more serious thoughts on membership policy.
A Man of Harmony
In 1955, Jean proposed the creation of a "Harmony Heritage" song series. Throughout the 1940s, the Society had furnished barbershop arrangements to music publishers, who released them as song books. But the commercial publisher's interest in barbershop was dwindling, and the Society's own "Songs for Men" folio series was no longer sparking much interest among members. Ironically, at the same time, the songs of the late 1890s were beginning to come into the public domain at an increasing rate. (The copyright period on songs was effectively 56 years back then.)
The "Harmony Heritage" proposal turned these trends to the Society's advantage. Suitable public domain songs would be arranged in the barbershop style and printed in-house in octavo form. Members would be guaranteed a steady flow of high-quality barbershop songs. The first song in the series, "When You Were Sweet Sixteen", rolled off the presses in 1956.
From then on, Jean spent many happy hours in the Library of Congress scanning the ‘new' public domain songs for candidates for the new series. He also painstakingly researched each selection to authenticate melody lines and lyrics, believing that the series should "faithfully honor the original time, note values, and melodic line, preserving the songs in the forms in which the composers thought they ought to be sung." In his "Harmony Heritage Songs" column, he gave the background of each new song and discussed special points about the new arrangements, noting where he had removed the turn-of-the-century ‘Ethiopian dialect' from certain songs – the only alterations he ever made to the original lyrics.
A Man of Vision
Jean once countered Society founder O.C. Cash's claim to be the world's greatest barbershop baritone by pointing out that he himself had learned bari from a tom cat with its tail caught in a fence, and that therefore he was the better singer. But underneath the banter, Jean had a profound belief in the Society and the value of its musical art form: "The Society has rediscovered the greatest of musical truths – which is that song is at its best when it expresses the genuine emotional experiences of ordinary persons so that singers and listeners sing together with their hearts. As long as we have the common sense to keep on singing what we are, we will keep America singing."
A Man of Action
Jean could barely contain his energy in the courtroom. He fingered documents, opened and closed books, gestured, strode back and forth while taking his glasses on and off. This trait was perhaps responsible for one of his most long-lasting effects on the Society.
In 1955, Jean coached the Singing Capital Chorus on a special set. When they appeared for their swan song as international champions, they dazzled the crowd with choreographed moves! Chorus contests were never the same again.
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