Carl Becker
This is the year that Carl Becker took over the baton from Jim Fox who had taken on a position that required him to be on call and not able to attend rehearsals on a regular basis.
Carl Becker plays F horn with us now but held the baton for a year or so until we wore him out. He says he plays now because he wants to keep going, and advises us all to keep practicing and always try to improve, a motto he certainly tried to drill into us every Tuesday night in 2007! I’m afraid we defeated him for the first time in his professional career!
Carl started off on the trumpet at age 11, and by 13 was playing professionally for local dance bands for $5 a night. (Yes, per gig. 3 hours for $5!) He played with the Glen Gregory Band, Jackson King and Martin King Orchestras, the Ted Weems Band (which is where Perry Como got his start), the Red Skelton Band, and the Red Wick Orchestra, among others. He played in the Third Armored Division Band from 1951-1958, and his solo in Trumpeter’s Lullaby was recorded by RCA Victor during that time.
This music educator taught locally at Plaza Park and Lodge Schools, as well as Mater Dei HS, before moving on to Brownsville, Texas. He traveled the world with that high school band, touring Mexico City and most of Europe, as well as attending the Chicago International Band and Orchestra Clinic. This band met Carl’s high standards!
In 1991, Carl and his wife moved back to Evansville to retire. So, now, instead of directing a great high school band, he’s playing in the ODCB, the Bend in the River Brass Band, and the Christian Fellowship Church Orchestra and Praise Band. He travels twice a year to LA to hear “good jazz” and avoids pop music at all costs! He’s a modern jazz fan and tolerates good symphonic music. Why he tolerates US is a mystery, but, when music is in your blood, you’ll play anywhere! Carl is the best example of this phenomenon that I can think of!
Carl appreciates good music and good musicians, and many times we had discussions at rehearsals about what constitutes either. This man has never compromised his principles and will probably never enjoy newer pop music, but he led the band through fifteen concerts that year, as well as weekly rehearsals, and we appreciate his loyalty and his leadership and his willingness to put up with us.
Our first concert in 2007 was on April 17 at the Ohio Township Library, where we played for an audience of about thirty.
On May 14th, another concert was co-directed by Joseph Choi, the director of the Owensboro Youth Symphony, as well as choir director of the Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Evansville.
The ODCB played at the Rose Hill Cemetery Memorial Day observance and then at the Newburgh Presbyterian’s Strawberry Festival on May 26th. These full days have always been a challenge as well as a lot of fun, since we rush from one event to another on a holiday weekend.
M any times, the whole cast changes, it seems, and this day found us with two directors, Dave McGill and Jon Patton, helping out. Dave usually plays in the trombone or baritone section, but he’ll grab that baton in a pinch.
May 27th, the next day, found a lot of us traveling to Lincoln Park Amphitheater in Spencer County to play for a small crowd in a combined performance with the Owensboro Community Band and the Spencer County Community Band. Directors for this performance were Steve O’Neal from Owensboro, and Jon Patton. The day was very hot, but, then, so was the music! We played together with our neighboring bands many, many tunes we share from our early folders, and it was a pleasure to get so many of us together again. Several of us play in all 3 bands, at least when we can, and members of both the Owensboro and Spencer bands have helped us out at concerts many times and are our friends. But what a busy weekend we had!
Two days later we were at the Eastminster Presbyterian church in Evansville, under the direction of Joseph Choi, performing in the sanctuary for 150 churchgoers. I think after that most of us went home and collapsed. Four concerts in such varied venues over such a short period under four directors is a challenge even for us!
By late June, though, we had recuperated enough to be back on the road. We had our usual “sold-out” concerts at Lakeside Manor and Solarbron, followed, of course, by the 4th of July fireworks show on the river in Newburgh. We also had two concerts late that summer at the downtown Evansville main library and at our own Ohio Township library.
October found us in the parades for the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival and for the Newburgh Halloween festivities. In November we performed on the patio of a downtown Newburgh café and were caroling on street corners in early December. Christmas concerts included the downtown Evansville library, a combined concert in Owensboro with the Owensboro Community Band and the Spencer County Community band, and one dedicated to our own Bill Haas at the Ohio Township library.
Needless to say, this was a busy year, with the entire organization participating in 46 concerts! The big band played 15 times, we rode in 3 parades, and combined with two area bands for 2 more gigs. And the Little Old Dam Band played for 26 shows!
That LODB! These guys were everywhere that year, from the SWIRCA ‘prom’ for senior citizens in Evansville to churches all over the tri-state. From birthday parties to the ‘Smile of Downs Syndrome Buddy Walk’. From the Really Big Show to Santa Land.
On November 25, the LODB and the ODCB lost Bill Haas, who died at home after a short illness. The LODB played its saddest gig for Bill at the funeral home, where his place was marked by his hat and his tuba, the first Dixie land funeral in Newburgh as far as we know.
Several band members, in fact, thirteen of us, have been with the band since that first year, 2000. These musicians include Bryan Hartig, Virgil Miller, Jim Sermersheim, Bryant Taylor, Mike Fillipi, Jeff Middleton, Frank Book, Dave Emery, Wayne Fiester, John Powell, and Ted Gore, as well as Dan and me. In 2001, Tracy McConnell and Mike Reising joined us and stayed. If you check the band website today, January 2011, you will find some 69 members pictured and the year they joined us. Many, many musicians have come and gone through the years, leaving us for many reasons, and staying for others. Every one of these people, old and young, whether they moved away or moved on, became ill or old, or, sadly, passed away, are all our friends and part of our community. We thank each and every one of you for contributing to this band and enriching our lives.
These early, hardy souls especially deserve our thanks, I think, because we have been through much together. Ten years, for one thing. Of these early members, four lost their homes in the tornado of 2005! Two… Jim Sermersheim and Dave Emery, cannot play with us presently due to illness and age. Bill Haas has passed away. The rest of us play on, coming to rehearsals when we can.
Bryan Hartig
Bryan is our trumpet/fluglehorn soloist who has contributed his wonderful talent to almost every concert we’ve ever performed. He is an electrician by trade, but a true musician in his heart and ours, trained on bass as well as horn. He and his wife Rose, as well as their daughters Anna and Laura, have been contributing to area music for years, playing for weddings and funerals and other events all over the tri-state. They helped found the Owensboro Community Band and play there regularly, organizing and maintaining their music library, as well as performing. Through the years, the ODCB would have found itself in a real quandary on many occasions without Bryan and his trumpet and we appreciate his leadership and talent and loyalty and friendship.
I would like to acknowledge my fellow saxophone players who have been together for these 10 years, too! Jeff Middleton, Mike Fillipi, Bryant Taylor, and me. Sometimes it seemed we never had a sax section, but we always did, didn’t we? When I was researching this history, I remembered us floundering along sometimes, doing our best with “Big Band” tunes that featured the saxes. Sometimes one or two of us were all we had for a rehearsal or concert, but we were always there, learning as we went. Good for us.
When Ted and Rachelle Gore showed up their first evening in 2000, I looked across that concrete floor in the Old Lock and Dam Building and saw my cousin walk in with her husband. I didn’t know them well in 2000, but Rachelle and I had grown up two houses away from each other, and I had known her all my life. Who would have known that, in 2000, we would become good friends again under such different circumstances? Band will do that to you! Dan and I feel so fortunate to count Ted and Rachelle among our very good friends: these, funny, truly nice people who help us wind up any party and add so much to our lives.
Mike Reising
Mike Reising. Here, again, is a phenomenon of sorts. Mike and I knew each other when our kids went to school together years ago in Ft. Branch. And there he came in the door at the Old Dam building in 2001, complete with trumpet! He plays the French horn now and keeps us all on our toes with his wit and his personality, and, once again, is such a part of our lives now that we can hardly remember doing without him. Mike usually sits right behind me in band and his rhythm is right on, keeping us all on the beat if we just listen to him. His is the first voice a newcomer will hear, welcoming anyone to come play with the band!
Frank Book, Dave Emery, Jim Sermersheim, John Powell, Wayne Fiester, Ted Gore, and Dan Schultz. What have we here but the Little Old Dam Band!! The very core of the band through these ten years. The men who kept it all together, both the ODCB and the LODB. We know these guys so well, because our lives are so intertwined after so many days and evenings spent together, traveling to gigs all over the area and even the world. Their wives and I are the groupies for the LODB, cheering for the guys when no one else remembers them over in a corner at an event, yelling with everyone at other events who appreciate them being there. We are all good friends and these guys together are a class act. Come see them together and you’ll see what I mean. They fit. They like each other. And now that two of the gang are laid up a bit, they take the band to them in their retirement homes. What a nice group of men.
Most of these forever members have held office in the band at one time or other. Virgil Miller has been on the board and never misses a rehearsal or a concert if he can, sitting in the trumpet row wherever he’s needed, adding his own brand of humor to the situation, whatever it is. Tracy McConnell, of course, has been the source of a lot of the band’s funding through the years, serving as secretary and chief cheerleader. Frank Book is absolutely always wherever anyone needs him to be, with his friendly smile and quiet optimism and wicked sense of humor, which comes out when you least expect it.
Wayne Fiester
And Wayne Fiester. Our master of ceremonies. The leader of the LODB. Vice President since day one. What can be said about Wayne? He, too, is a fellow Purdue graduate, who happened to attend that big university in the same years I did back in the 60’s. He marched in the Purdue Band, playing his trombone, as he had at North High School in Evansville before that. And then he stored it in the attic and went on with his life until 2000, when he saw the article in the Courier about this new Old Dam Community Band.
The first evening he came, he showed up at the old Lock and Dam Building without his trombone, but turned around and went home and got it when everyone was so glad to see him. He’s been playing ever since, anchoring the trombone section as chief soloist and first chair (if we had such a thing). He uses his speaking ability at every concert, entertaining our audiences with music facts and a few pleas for contributions, while we all regain our chops between numbers. His obvious level of comfort in this capacity makes it fun for everybody, and he ramps up our concerts a few notches every time he speaks, introducing soloists and directors, acknowledging arrangers and admitting mistakes made by the band in the previous piece played, and always hoping that we do better next time!
Wayne is Dan’s conscience sometimes, and they play off each other well, balancing each other and the band with their opposite personalities. I enjoy seeing them together, because they are such good friends and so very different, each contributing in their unique ways to both the friendship and the band. They’re like a microcosm of us all: unique personalities making for a special group.
Wayne also “directs” the LODB and is the spokesman there, too. We have had amazing adventures in England and all over the States with Wayne and the little band, and with Wayne and Nance Fiester, who invite us over for delicious meals, knowing we don’t cook but do enjoy eating! Thanks, guys, for that, and for your friendship…