Evenings with the Band

Just one of the delights of the area where I reside is having the ability to to just simply wander down the street for a fantastic free of charge evening of great music by our Municipal Band. This band has been in existence for 101 years, the longest on-going Municipal Band in the united states. The music director and conductor Larry has been doing his thing for the band for approximately eighteen years currently, and I have seen almost every presentation he has been engaged in during those years. So not surprisingly it is easy to understand if I am feeling sad today to learn that our city just cannot afford to keep going with the band and this year is the closing performance for our yearly Summer Music Concert Series.

In our town we have a variety of free music, free movies on the beach and lots of little free rock concerts that take place all summer. But not one of these equate to the attendance at the Municipal Band Concerts. They are very well-liked, with overflow crowds’ at all four large city parks where they hold them. In fact, it is so packed that I have been doing what plenty in our town do on concert day. I have been heading out to the park right off the bat in the morning hours to stake out my place on the lawn with a blanket and chair to tag my spot until I come back in the evening. I reckon it claims something good about our town that fifty people can abandon their chairs and blankets seated on a lawn all day long and they are all still there when we come back to the park at 6Pm that night to sit down and appreciate the concert.

By the time the concert commences each week, there are typically around 200 people sitting at the lawn, most with picnic baskets of splendid goodies and the ever so illegal wine to drink. I do find it funny that they never fail to announce at the outset of each show that it is illegal to consume alcohol on park premises while everyone within earshot of the statement is uncorking their wine bottles and pouring them into wine glasses to pass around. But not a soul has ever gotten rowdy, we are a quite sedate lot who sit and munch our cold chicken, drink our wine and listen to Star and Stripes Forever. The wildest anyone gets is when every Fourth of July show the band asks participants of the various armed forces to stand when the band plays the theme for their specific branch of the military. Some get very teary-eyed and many sing along pretty loudly, even if they are tone deaf. But if is very small-town and fairly sweet to see.

My girlfriend and I have been traveling to these concerts jointly for approximately five years now, ever since we met and came to the realization we both loved these concerts. She doesn’t always get out of work in time to be there at the outset, so I will put the food together in the afternoon while I am writing and take it to the park as she is closing up her store and venturing out our way. We meet in the park, with her little dog Susie solidly in check, and smile at the delight this performance delivers to our lives.

So I am sad to think that with next week’s performance this amazing ritual of summer in our town will be no more. The town announced last year that they would be reducing because of tight finances and when the bucket went around for contributions almost everyone ponied up in a major way. We raised twice the amount we usually do, but it still wasn’t enough. High schools did car washes and little old ladies scheduled rummage sales, but it nevertheless wasn’t enough. They discussed it for three months at town hall get togethers, but the musicians are all top artists, many are session artists in Hollywood studios when they aren’t at the Municipal Concert performances. Although they wanted to come down in their fees, they are all union and cannot bring it down further than they have. So this is the end of an era. And we will be all the poorer to be without it.

When Deni isn’t lamenting the loss of her Municipal Band, she is writing blogs about many unique and exciting things. Some of those include a blog about how to use metal bandsaw blades correctly, the best way to build a brick retaining wall for your garden and what the real estate market is like in Monroe County in Southern Florida.