Early evenings with the Band

Just one of the pleasures of the area where I reside is having the ability to simply just walk down the street for a great no cost evening of superb music by our Municipal Band. This band has been in existance 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 now, and I have seen just about every presentation he has been engaged in for the period of those years. So not surprisingly it is logical if I am feeling sad these days to learn that our city just cannot afford to carry on with the band and this year is the closing performance for our annual Summer Music Concert Series.

In our town we have all kinds of free music, free movies on the beach and many 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 significant city parks where they hold them. In fact, it is so congested that I have been doing what countless in our town do on concert day. I have been heading out to the park right off the bat in the early morning to stake out my place on the lawn with a blanket and chair to mark my spot until I come back in the evening. I suppose it shows something good about our town that fifty people can abandon their chairs and blankets sitting on a lawn throughout the day and they are all still there when we get back to the park at 6Pm that night to sit down and appreciate the concert.

By the time the concert begins each week, there are usually around 200 people sitting at the lawn, almost all with picnic baskets of wonderful goodies and the ever so illegal wine to drink. I do find it amusing that they never fail to announce at the start of each show that it is unlawful to consume alcohol on park premises while everyone inside of earshot of the announcement is uncorking their wine bottles and serving them into wine glasses to pass around. But no one has ever gotten rowdy, we are a rather calm group who sit and munch our cold chicken, drink our wine and listen to Star and Stripes Forever. The wildest anyone gets is when just about every Fourth of July show the band asks participants of the various armed forces to stand when the band plays the theme for their individual branch of the military. Some get very teary-eyed and many sing along really loudly, even if they are tone deaf. But if is very small-town and nice to see.

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

So I am sorry to think that with next week’s performance this wonderful ritual of summer in our town will be ending. The town declared last year that they would be curtailing because of tight money and when the bucket went around for contributions absolutely everyone ponied up hugely. We raised twice the amount we typically do, but it still wasn’t sufficient. High schools did car washes and little old ladies held rummage sales, but it nevertheless wasn’t enough. They talked about it for three months at town hall meetings, but the musicians are all top artists, most are session artists in Hollywood studios when they aren’t at the Municipal Concert performances. Despite the fact that they wanted to go down in their fees, they are all union and cannot bring it down any more 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 diverse and entertaining 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.