The new year found the LODB busy again, playing at least fifteen gigs that year. On September 4th the guys played for the SWIRCA ‘senior’ prom in Evansville and entertained a crowd on the riverfront on September 11, with the Newburgh Senior Citizens Kazoo band. This kazoo band had debuted earlier with the ODCB on August 12th at the Ohio Township Public Library and became an instant hit.
The Aug. 12th concert was Carl Becker’s last as our director, although he still never misses a rehearsal or concert playing F horn in the third row. We thank Carl for all those years, and for all the wisdom he shares with us. He recently brought in an original recording of the Sousa Band playing El Capitan at a ridiculous speed! Who is the world does John Philip Sousa think he is anyway?
James leslie
By September 19th, the band had its first open rehearsal at the library under the direction of James Leslie. James comes to us from Evansville, where he first attended Stanley Hall Elementary school before moving all across the states as an Army brat. He ended up back in Evansville at Bosse High School and then the University of Evansville. He was on the Board of Directors for the Imperial Guard Drum & Bugle Corps in Evansville in the 70s and played with the Salvation Army Brass Band in England. He tells a story about casually dropping into the Albert Hall in London where he came across an empty rehearsal hall, and tried out a horn when nobody was looking! You’re all the first to know!
James came to us in the ODCB in 2007 and remembers his first rehearsal when Hugh literally ran down the steps of the Lock and Dam Building to get a baritone out of his car so James could play. After that, he was here to stay. James agreed to help us out as director as long as his health permitted, and we were so lucky to have this nice guy help us when we needed him. That baton is hard on people, though, and today James is back in the baritone section. We all celebrated with James when he married Sandie in 2009, and have welcomed her when she comes along to rehearsals and concerts.
The Koch Family
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Ray and Mary Ann Koch started driving from Haubstadt to play with us in 2008, bringing with them their kids, Alex and Andrew, who are Betty Emmert’s private music students. Alex is a freshman at Reitz HS now and Andrew a middle schooler at St. James in Haubstadt. Mary Ann and Andrew play trumpet, Alex the flute. At first, Ray would drive the family to rehearsal and sit and listen. Then.. one day Liz Emmert decided it was time to teach Ray to play and instrument. She started Ray on a Bb mellophone and eventually he ‘graduated’ to F horn. He now plays with The Band so he can complete this “Trapp Family” of musicians. These special people come to us as a family and certainly demonstrate what “family time together” can mean. How cool is that? Don’t leave the kids at home! Bring them along!
Al Barthlow
The Old Dam Community Band has been fortunate through the years to have had many, many good musicians play with us. But, perhaps, Al Barthlow has been one of the few real professional musicians to join us. Al hails from Owensboro, Kentucky now, but was raised in Evansville, learning music at Delaware Elementary. His teacher was Albert Venneman, a German expatriate from WWI who told the young Al that he would never play trombone because of an overbite and too-short arms! But Al prevailed and was good enough to perform for War Bond Assemblies during the early WWII years, playing with the “Little German Band” and earning him early status as a true ham.
Al went on to the old Central High School under the direction of Burnell Smith (our own Jenny Deters’ dad), Harry Hart, (Nan Baum’s dad), and Wesley Shepherd. He was honored as “Mr. Evansville Teenager of 1948”and given the trip of a lifetime to New York City, with a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. He remembers dining at Sardis, and “21”, and the Stork Club, doing a national radio show sponsored by Coca Cola and meeting famous band leaders of the era while being escorted about town in limousines and dancing on the famous Hotel Astor Roof. What a heady experience for a boy from Evansville, Indiana!
He, as others had, was already playing in dance bands around Evansville, even though under-age. He also was given a uniform and paid for playing his horn for the 5th Infantry Division Regimental Band of the Indiana State Guard while still a teenager. This would later save him from Korea, since he ended up in the 89th Army Band at Ft. Sills instead of the infantry he had trained for.
Al played with Doc Stocker, Roger Kinkle, Ralph Corum, Red Asbell and other local jazz men in the Evansville area. These men taught him jazz and allowed him the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time when Art Kassel, of “Castles in the Air” jazz band fame, allowed him to sub for the regular trombonist at Club Trocadero. By age 19 he was on the road with Chicago’s “Sugar Blues” band before being drafted during the Korean conflict in 1951 and meeting his future wife in Miami. By the end of that conflict, Al says the Big Band era was dead and that dratted “Bill Haley and the Comets” ruined music forever.
There was certainly no room for trombones in those early rock and roll bands, so Al moved his young family back to Evansville and worked for a Mortgage company for 25 years, playing when he could, and moving all over the Midwest. He and his wife moved to New Orleans in 1981 to finally give him the opportunity to play a little music while he still could. And play he did! Al has recorded with 16 or 17 groups, played with the likes of Al Hirt and Pete Fountain, and been music director for Harry Connick, Sr. He enjoyed more than 3 years with the Delta Queen Steamboat company and played over 3 years with the “Dukes of Dixieland”. The “Dukes” played Carnegie hall with the New York philharmonic under the direction of Skitch Henderson, and took Al with them all over the world, playing gigs in Europe, South America, Canada, and Asia.
Al ended up back in Owensboro after a series of health problems and the death of his much-loved wife, and, to our delight, ended up finding us! Dan got a phone call from Al a couple of years ago, after Al was given his number as someone to talk to about playing in a band again. Not knowing who he was talking to, Dan invited Al to come play with the ODCB in a concert at the library that evening. Al came, retrieved his beloved trombone from his car, and surprised us all with the talent he showed that first night with us. The trombone section has never been the same! Wayne Fiester always has said he thought” who WAS that guy? “ Wow.
We have been entertained ever since. Al can still play that trombone, and he blasts us with his wit every time we see him. Forever the entertainer, he now plays with the ODCB, the Owensboro Community Band, the Hadi Shrine Temple Brass Band, and the Bend in the River Brass Band. This man is 79 years old and has lived through an era of music that most of us can only dream about, playing with famous musicians that all of us have heard about and wondered over. We are privileged to know you, Al, and honored to have you in our band.
I had written the above in early summer of 2010.
Al Barthlow died suddenly on July 27, 2010. He died with his boots on, so to speak, and had been with us for band practice on Tuesday and with the Owensboro band on Sunday afternoon.
The ODCB, along with the Owensboro Community Band, the Bend in the River Brass Band, the Hadi Shrine Band, and the Owensboro Symphonic Band performed a memorial concert in Al’s memory on Sept 11, 2010 at the museum in downtown Owensboro. I hope Al heard that concert and, in his newly acquired angelic state, didn’t criticize us too much! We try, Al!
By late 2007 the band had developed a venue problem. The big band had always rehearsed in the Old Lock and Dam Building, and, even though it is a big concrete and brick building with terrible acoustics, it served us well for 7 years. Aside from the acoustics being bad, it was often too hot or too cold, but the town had allowed us to use it every Tuesday evening at no charge. Now it was to be renovated and so closed to everybody for the duration. Our Board of Directors looked at other venues, such as the new Newburgh Town Hall, but none were really available on a regular basis. The Newburgh Kiwanis club offered us the use of one of their meeting rooms in their new building for a rehearsal hall, and we took them up, gratefully, on their offer, where we met weekly for a few months.
The new room was not really set up for what we needed, though, with a low ceiling and limited space. Dan purchased and installed acoustic panels on the walls but since we were growing, we had to find a venue more suitable before we all went deaf! We utilized the Ohio Township public library during this time, at least once a month, for what we called open rehearsals, where the public was invited to watch us rehearse in the combined meeting rooms there. And then, in 2008, Jerry Reese offered us the use of the then Castle Junior High rehearsal room. Wow. We were finally in a real rehearsal hall! Honestly, I think most of us were flabbergasted at the difference in how we sounded and how “professional” it made us feel. We have settled down to be a real band. Rehearsals are actually real rehearsals where everyone works hard at learning new music and the rewards are great. Still, I don’t think we have sacrificed our original principles for becoming more professional, because we still have such a good time at band! And this, too, is so very important to an adult community band. The “community” part, you know.