The Village Band

Last night was my first band concert with the EP Village Band. I went to my first rehearsal on Tuesday night and was immediately moved to principal horn, but that wasn't really my mission. The band is made up of a mostly older community and aside from a couple high schoolers who attend the school where we rehearse, I am the youngest one there by a long shot. I just wanted an outlet to make sure I play my horn this summer, regardless of whatever the quality of the group is, but these guys actually play really well!

Our concert last night was at a retirement center in town where people could bring their lawn chairs as we played outside the main doors. The clouds were rolling in and tiny drops of water were beginning to sprinkle on the plexiglass music covers on top of our folding stands as we sat in our personal folding chairs to warm up. Cars pulled up from local residents who wanted to come listen to their town band and the nursing staff wheeled out residents from the location to come listen.

The theme of the concert was post-memoriay-day-early-flag-day-post-v-day which honored many of the people out to watch. As per usual we started with a march: "National Emblem," by Bagley. As soon as the music started, the rain cleared off and was completely gone by the end of the march. As one of the conductors began to announce the next piece ("The Homefront": a medley of WWII songs), he directed everyone's attention to the giant rainbow crossing through the sky. I have never seen a rainbow as giant and amazing as this one which, if you've seen my scrapbook from last summer, is amazing. It was almost as though two perfect rainbows were stacked on top of each other so closely that they were sewn into one perfect entity.

We continued the concert with an obvious blessing from above and dove into that medley. An older woman was directly in my line of sight and I often watched her throughout the concert, but this piece was the reason I was so drawn to her. As we played through the conglomeration of "It's Been a Long, Long Time," "Thanks for the Memory," "I'll Be Seeing You," and "The White Cliffs of Dover," I watched her sing along but even more importantly--I watched her face remember every memory that each of those songs contained for her.

There's something so powerful about music that just provokes those kinds of memories. You can hear any song and often immediately find yourself reliving the very first time you heard that song. We watched The Shawshank Redemption the other night and Andy Dufresene had some pretty good music quotes, but one of them was about the "beauty of music" as something no one can steal from you.

"You need it so you don't forget that there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside that they can't get to, that they can't touch...that's yours."

Red asks Andy what he's talking about and the simple reply is, hope.

That's what so many of these songs signified for the people listening through their memories last night and it was so neat to watch that show through on their faces. The program continued with "I Got Plenty Of Nuttin'," which got me thinking about the first time I knew that piece as a duet with my piano teacher when I was starting to learn some jazz for the first time.

After that, we transitioned to another march by Charles Duble called, "Old Glory Triumphant." The vocal soloist returned to sing "The Pledge Of Allegiance," as arranged by Alfred Reed, followed by our national hymn, "God Of Our Fathers," which had some fantastic horn parts to play. This was followed by a Karl King march, "Salute To The Colors," a medley of television theme songs, "A Symphony Of Sit-Coms," featuring themes from "I Love Lucy," "Bewitched," "Mister Ed" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show," Fillmore's march, "The Circus Bee," followed by Louis Armstrong's version of "What A Wonderful World."

That last one is another that triggers some sentimental value for me, but more importantly my dad. Whenever it comes on the ipod or in a store or pretty much anywhere and we are together, he always tells me that this is the song we will dance to whenever I end up getting married and goes on about how when I was little he would pick me up and we'd dance around the living room to Louis' unmistakable voice.

The concert concluded with Sousa's "Gallant Seventh," and as soon as the last note sounded, the rain suddenly started up again. It was almost as if the clouds wanted to make sure we had the perfect setting and all their attention for the music. They even brought that giant rainbow out again at the end. It was a little fainter this time, but an unmistakable congratulations from the sky for a job well done, as if any storm in the area was dissolved away by the sounds coming out.

That reminds me of one more quote from the movie the other night from Red's narration:

"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."

I don't know if I will ever see the lady I was watching again--probably not--but I felt lucky to be able to share with her memories through her face last night. I tried finding her afterward to talk to her a little and thank her but she was gone. That is one of the things I love most about music. It's that way to make the walls that cage people in disappear. It's that ability to communicate, whether you are aware of it or not, without ever saying a word.