Nights with the Band

Just one of the joys of the community where I live is having the ability to just walk down the street for a amazing totally free evening of terrific 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 at present, and I have seen almost every presentation he has been involved in for the period of those years. So of course it is reasonable if I am feeling sad nowadays to learn that our city just cannot afford to continue on with the band and this year is the last performance for our once-a-year 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 happen all summer. But probably none of these match up against the attendance at the Municipal Band Concerts. They are very in demand, with overflow crowds’ at all four large city parks where they hold them. In fact, it is so jampacked that I have been doing what countless in our town do on concert day. I have been heading out to the park very first thing in the early morning to stake out my spot on the lawn with a blanket and chair to indicate my spot until I come back in the evening. I imagine it says something good about our town that fifty people can abandon their chairs and blankets seated on a lawn all day and they are all still there when we come back to the park at 6Pm that night to be seated and delight in the concert.

By the time the concert commences each week, there are commonly around 200 people sitting at the lawn, the majority of with picnic baskets of splendid goodies and the positively illegal wine to drink. I do find it humorous that they without exception announce at the outset of each show that it is against the law 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 fairly sedate group who sit and munch our cold chicken, drink our wine and listen to Star and Stripes Forever. The craziest 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 nice to see.

My girlfriend and I have been going to these concerts with each other for about 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 start, 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 solidly in check, and smile at the pleasure this performance delivers to our lives.

So I am heartbroken to think that with next week’s performance this wonderful ritual of summer in our town will be ending. The town announced last year that they would be reducing because of tight money and when the bucket went around for contributions most people ponied up big time. We raised twice the amount we generally do, but it still wasn’t sufficient. High schools did car washes and little old ladies scheduled rummage sales, but it nevertheless wasn’t enough. They talked about it for three months at town hall conferences, but the musicians are all top performing artists, many of them are session artists in Hollywood studios when they aren’t at the Municipal Concert performances. Even though they wanted to go down in their fees, they are all union and can not 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 fun 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.