The Dartmouth Aires

The Dartmouth Aires are an a cappella group at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

As Dartmouth's oldest a cappella group, have a blend of history, tradition, and current-day success that sets them apart from other on-campus performing ensembles. The group, originally called "The Injunaires", was founded in 1946 as four-man offshoot of the College Glee Club whose only purpose was to provide light entertainment during the intermissions of the larger ensemble's concerts. Since then, the Aires has evolved from that four-man group to an eight-man group to a group of more than twelve, broken away from the Glee Club, changed its name, flirted with the usage of instruments, added sketch comedy to their shows, begun using in their songs, performed in several different countries, stopped doing sketch comedy in their shows, and achieved nationwide recognition for their recording prowess. Few Aires are serious musicians, and even fewer go on to careers in music. However, the experience of making music with the Aires ties together all two-hundred-plus alumni and assures them that -- as their group song Somewhere from West Side Story asserts -- "there's a place for us."

The Aires of Today
The post-millennial Aires normally have between 14 and 19 members, with about 12 to 16 on campus and singing in any given term. While the group's repertoire does include several Dartmouth Songs and a few choral pieces, the Aires primarily perform covers of popular music -- classic rock, doo-wop, 80's pop, disco, current top 40 hits, and even a little hip-hop. The group's arrangements (penned almost universally by members) generally consist of one or two soloists, one or two vocal percussionists and six to eight "instrumental" vocal lines distributed among the remaining singers. The purpose of these backing vocalists and mouthdrummers is to recreate the feel of the song being covered without slavishly imitating the original performance -- using only sounds that can be made with the human body.

History
The '40s -- It Starts
Originally called The Injunaires, the group was created by Paul Zeller, then director of the College Glee Club. Zeller wanted something to provide a bit of a change-of-pace during Glee Club concert intermissions, so he chose four men to learn and perform lighter, close-harmony arrangements while the rest of the singers took a bit of a breather. Mood Indigo was one of their earliest pieces, and became something of an Injunaires "signature song" for the next few decades. By 1950, the Injunaires had expanded to an eight member ensemble, performing primarily arrangements written by Zeller, though members did pen their own as well. The group's association with the Glee Club remained, however, as it would until the late 1970's.

The '70s -- Splitting from the Glee Club
By the late 70's, the Injunaires had begun to chafe at some of the restrictions imposed by their status as a part of the Glee Club. Chief among these was the requirement that every Injunaire also be a part of the larger ensemble. This requirement had obvious positives for the Glee Club, and the fact that every Injunaire also got several hours a week of classical vocal work was helpful to the smaller group as well. However, many members wished to have that time to devote to other activities without having to quit the Injunaires as well. Also, the Glee Club director retained a level of control over the group, which limited the group's ability to explore different genres of music. Ultimately, though many of the group's alumni were opposed to the decision, the Injunaires decided to break away from the Glee Club. At the same time, they dropped the "Injun" from their name (finding it offensive) and assumed the "Aires" moniker that they use to this day.

As a side note, in 1966 Ted Gundy '68 arranged Somewhere from the Broadway musical West Side Story for the group. At some point around the time of the split, that song replaced Mood Indigo as the group's "signature song". Alumni from the 1980's have reported that the group still sang Somewhere in shows during that decade, though this practice has largely ceased as the meaning of the group's "signature song" has evolved over time.

The '90s -- Choreography, Sketch Comedy and Vocal Percussion

Collegiate a cappella underwent some drastic changes in the 1990s, as well as an explosion in popularity. VP came onto the scene, adding a new instrument to the a cappella arrangers' palette. Groups began to try to ever-more-faithfully reproduce the pop songs they covered, and performances had become more "shows" than "concerts". As such, elements of performance outside mere singing were more important than ever. The Aires at the time enhanced their shows with two things: comedy and choreography.

Aires humor, as expressed over the last fifteen to twenty years, is generally based on being over the top. Whether it's a gross-out joke, slapstick, self-mockery or just silliness, the Aires always try to play it to the point of absurdity. In the early-to-mid '90s, the group would have many very short interludes interspersed throughout the show. For several years, Daniel "Goo" Gonzales '96 would just go out on stage with a bag of stuff and be weird for a few minutes. Jim "Sterno" McNicholas '01 was a master at taking a single random object (clothes hanger, step ladder, shopping cart...whatever) and riffing on that for a while. Eli "Gonzo" Jorne '02 would just be bizarre and over-the-top creepy until the entire audience (and some members of the group, frankly) started shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Tyler "Typo" Slade '03 sacrificed his body for slapstick gags. A lot. As time went on, the skits (internally referred to as intros for some reason) became fewer and longer, getting to the point where scripts, costumes and props became involved. Many intros were stupid and not that funny. Some were breathtakingly hilarious. Either way, most were a single-shot deal. The best few would be revived for orientation-week shows -- since the incoming first year students had never seen the Aires before, the jokes would be fresh. Possibly due to the high rate of "stinkers" produced by the group, intros began to fall out of favor as this decade turned to the next, though sometimes humorous interludes would be added to songs in order to maintain performance value. Choreography, on the other hand, remained a part of many Aires shows even into the next century.

It has always been desirable in any performance that the participants appear visually engaging; smiling, making eye contact with the audience, and connecting emotionally with the material one is presenting have always made for a more enjoyable audience experience. That said, well-executed and appropriate choreography can really help make a show more exciting. Presumably, the Aires have been doing some level of group choreography since the early days -- barbershop or doo-wop type group movements. Over the years, the group's choreography got more complicated and energetic, culminating in the late 1990s with a rendition of Smooth Criminal that was essentially lifted straight from the original artist's music video. Examples of slightly earlier "choreo" can be seen today in the group's performances of Shamma Lamma Ding Dong (which has remained largely the same since the late 1980s) and version of Up the Ladder to the Roof. Currently, the Aires do less choreography than did the group of the late '90s, primarily due to the fact that the arrangements have become more musically challenging, thus requiring more focus during performance.

As mentioned in the previous section, the group's conception of a signature song evolved as the '80s transitioned to the '90s. By this time, they had ceased performing Somewhere in shows, saving it for private group moments such as welcoming new members, saying goodbye to graduating Aires, and reconnecting with alumni.

The '00s -- Recording
In the spring of '99, the Aires elected Adam "oDo" Ballard '00 to be the director for the next year. As the most skilled arranger in the group -- and one of the most prolific in group history -- Adam wanted the flexibility to do more complex and challenging arrangements. To this end, the Aires accepted seven new members that fall, essentially causing the average group size to settle around fourteen members ever since. This allowed Adam to habitually pen arrangements with eight to ten parts, up from around six. The Aires' rendition of Don't Come Around Here No More is the largest arrangement at thirteen vocal lines plus three percussionists and a soloist, though Jeremy is considered to be the most challenging arrangement the group has tackled to date. Part of the reason for these more complicated arrangements was that the advent of digital recording technology had made multi-track recording cost-effective for collegiate performing groups of modest means -- and the ease of manipulation provided by multi-track recording had greatly expanded the quality and intricacy of studio-produced a cappella albums. The group's leadership had decided that, with the larger group, Adam's arrangements, and a new source of revenue provided by a now-yearly winter break tour of the northeast, they could make a splash on the national collegiate a cappella scene. [http://www.dartmouth.edu/~aires/interplanetairey.php Interplanetairey (2000)] received solid reviews from the national collegiate a cappella community and one of Adam's arrangements was nominated for the Best Male Collegiate Arrangement of the Year [http://casa.org/index.php?optioncom_content&taskview&id14&Itemid39 Contemporary A cappella Recording Award (CARA)] by the [http://casa.org Contemporary A cappella Society of America (CASA)]. Thanks to future arrangers following in Adam's footsteps (and Adam himself sticking around for a while), the Aires' next two albums, [http://www.dartmouth.edu/~aires/blacktieaffaire.php Black Tie Affaire (2002)] and [http://www.dartmouth.edu/~aires/impaired.php Impaired (2004)] (both recorded at Dartmouth by Chris "Dizno" Masone '02 and mixed by a Boston-area sound engineer Viktor Kray(also known as "Dr.Sound") were awarded CARAs for Best Male Collegiate Album. Also, one track from each of these albums was selected to appear on the yearly [http://www.varsityvocals.com/boca/ Best of Collegiate A cappella (BOCA)] compilation put out by .

Touring
Every three years throughout the '90s, and possibly earlier, the Aires took spring break and went on a group trip to California. There they performed for regional alumni clubs and high schools, sang with groups at other colleges (if possible), saw the sights and fell into tourist traps. While it is possible to set up a tour of California that roughly ends up breaking even, doing so for more exotic locations is more difficult. Since the group wanted to tour more frequently and to a wider variety of destinations (in addition to spending more money on recording), they added a money-making winter break tour of the Northeast to their yearly schedule. Starting in 1998, the group began road-tripping around New England and the New York tri-state area, singing at Dartmouth Alumni clubs, holiday parties, high schools, and anywhere else that will pay them and give them a chance to sell CDs. This tour, coupled with a more aggressive off-campus performance schedule during the school year -- and do-it-yourself recording -- has given the Aires the ability to tour every single spring break instead of every third. They have also been able to add destinations such as Florida, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Vail and Europe while maintaining the tri-annual California tour tradition.

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