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A Bit Like
"Brigadoon"
Deer Isle’s Community Band rehearses three or four times in
advance of its annual occasion at the town’s Fourth of July
parade. |
Once a year, the
wooden, hand-made sign hangs on the façade of the Shakespeare School
building: Home of the Community Band.
The band’s three or
four rehearsals take place in the little building, which served
between 1858 and 1921 as the village’s school. Band members meet in
advance of the single occasion all year at which they perform—the
Fourth of July.
The band’s
15-minute concert at 9:45 a.m. is followed by its presentation of
marching music as the parade goes by.
“We take a rest
until the parade doubles back on the same route,” said member Bob
Haskell, better known in music circles for the more widely
performing, 16-piece Bob Haskell Big Band. “Then we turn in our
music and disband for the year.”
The casual
configuration may number 22 or 25 musicians. (“We don’t discourage
walk-ins,” Haskell says). One of them, tuba player Paul Scott, lives
in Florida, but tries to drive up each year in time for the Fourth
of July.
Another, bass
drummer Gene Knowlton, has been playing locally since 1940. He has
not committed to playing again this year, Haskell said, but then
again, he always says that.
The Community Band
is a loose regrouping of the old Deer Isle band that played between
the late 1930s and early 1940s. Back then, Haskell said, they were
paid $5 to play a garden party.
The band’s
reconstitution took place in the mid-1970s for the purpose of giving
the Fourth of July parade some marching music. Paul Greenstone,
formerly a music teacher in Deer Isle, was the original bandleader.
Then came Kay Gardner, a flutist and composer who led the group for
about 20 years, until giving it up two summers ago. Now the leader
is Tom Gotwals, of Stonington’s musical family, who comes in from
Connecticut to do the honors.
The band’s forte is
Souza marches. But it has “Brigadoon” qualities, too: It is
captivating, but gone too soon.
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