“TAKE ME TO THE CIRCUS!”

(ATEK JACINTO reminisces and shares how the CIRCUS Band came to be 

and how the JINGLE Clan contributed to the band’s rise to fame.)

       

        

         The seminal influence in the concept and structure of the Circus Band was the movie documentary “Mad Dogs and the Englishmen” based on Joe Cocker’s concert tour of 1970.  Hastily organized by the music-meister himself, Leon Russell, it featured Joe Cocker and a gaggle of studio musicians and singers that included Rita Coolidge.  I watched the movie in 1971 and I was spellbound by what I saw and heard.  I loved the disparities in personalities, voices and music characters.  But I also liked how the vocal harmonies worked and how the different acts worked.  It was metaphorically, a circus.  The Circus Band concept was born!  I just have to sweat out the casting for the circus.

          None of the singers I eventually selected sounded similar.  I had to reject some very good singers because they sounded the same or similar to those I already cast.  The auditions, selection and pre-training of the vocalists lasted at least six months.  I was not in a hurry.  Then came the selection of the musicians.  I tried recycling musicians that I used in a previous project but I ended up firing the entire rhythm section because they were always too doped as to be of any use to me.  After another six months, I had assembled what I thought was the ideal combination of five musicians who had the right mix of rock, R&B, jazz, and pop influence that will complement the eight or 9 singers already on board.  Nobody in the music community believed that a band with fourteen core members can survive for long.  The industry norm was a band with 5 to 7 members.  Clearly, we were going against the industry trend, a thought that hardly bothered me.

         During the training period, I was introduced to the personalities at JINGLE Magazine and one thing led to another.  Gilbert, Emily and Eric Guillermo, the brothers Mike and Nap Jamir, visual artists Red Mansueto and Mon Habito were the names that I associated with the magazine.  They interviewed, photographed and chronicled the success of the Circus Band.  Pretty soon, there was a phenomenal market awareness of the band even before the public has seen or heard us. 

FIRST BATCH OF THE CIRCUS BAND L-R (standing) Pat Castillo, Gem Jacinto, Tillie Moreno, +Richard Tann+, +Walter Calinawan+, Wally Ang, Annette Belen, 

Jacqui Magno, Beth Katindig, Henry Tongson, Boy Katindig.
2nd Row (standing) Annette Belen-Montilla (infront of Walter), Jacqui Magno, Beth Katindig (infront of Boy) Henry Tongson.
3rd row (seated) Lorrie Tan, Pabs Dadivas, Atek Jacinto, Basil Valdez, Rey Sayno, +Rico Velez+

(Photo Credit: Facebook page of The Circus Band)

         After another six months of intense rehearsals we were ready for our maiden concert at the Meralco Theater as a guest act.  If I’m not mistaken, it was produced by JINGLE Magazine.  Although from the standpoint of the audience and the media, the performance was a big success, I was not happy and I gave the band a dressing down after we left the stage.  We trained for another two months.  Somebody from Wells Fargo, a well-known nightclub on Roxas Blvd saw the Meralco performance and booked us at the club.  That club gig caught like wildfire and everybody was now talking about the Circus Band.  The owner of another nightclub on the “strip” who knew my father made an offer that we just couldn’t refuse.  It was a year-long contract at Rino’s to play three nights a week with a salary that was 6 times more than the highest paid band on the strip.  I also demanded and got the club to purchase the brand new band equipment and sound system for us.  I knew then that we have succeeded in breaking the old standards and ushered a new one. 

         Another cornerstone of the band strategy was launching the Road Tour of major colleges and universities in Metro Manila and key cities in the major provinces like Baguio, Cebu, and Davao.  We did this for more than two years and we built a solid following in these areas.  The road tour enhanced our opportunity to go into recording which resulted in two live albums and two studio albums.  In 1974, the Circus Band performed my original at the Tokyo Music Festival and performed daily for two weeks at the hottest club in Tokyo then, The Mugen. 

         But as they say, all good things must come to an end.  The Circus Band amicably disbanded at the end of 1975 but not after leaving an indelible footprint in the Philippine musical landscape.  We left a legacy that inspired a whole new generation of bands that used the same large-format showband concept.  Happily, that concept is still around as

the name Circus Band.