Jim Bradshaw: Musicians weren't great, but they were sober

A brass band playing on the town square was a prime-time affair in summers long past.

Practically every community of any size had one to provide weekend concerts and to play at fairs, festivals, and celebrations like the Fourth of July.

Some were pretty good, some were not so good, and a few bordered on awful, at least when they first started tooting the trombones and tubas bought in New Orleans.

One of the good ones, “composed of the best amateur musicians,” was organized in 1899 in St. Martinville by Professor Carlos Greig.

Its concerts were “looked upon by our people as the attraction of the summer,” according to the St. Martinville Messenger.

The newspaper regularly printed glowing accounts of the performances, such as the comment that “the open air concert given last Sunday evening … was a complete success, the music was nice and sweet, and the number of persons who were upon the square and streets … was large, and all appreciated very highly the hour spent listening to such good music.”

Several of the town’s most prominent citizens played in the Eureka Brass Band organized in the early 1880s in Lake Charles.

They played into the 1890s, but we don’t know much about the caliber of their music. Some of its members did aspire beyond a bandstand in the park.

They organized an orchestra and in November 1883 were “practicing new dance music for [a] grand ball.”

New Iberia’s band was popular outside of its own community. When it played for a fair in Lafayette in 1882, the Advertiser said it played “real good music.”

Lafayette’s own band also performed at that fair and, the newspaper said, “it was the general opinion that the boys played very well.”

The Donaldsonville Independent Brass Band thought itself so good that in the early 1880s it advertised a challenge to “any Amateur Brass Band in the State of Louisiana” to compete for a $100 prize.

The Houma band quickly responded that several years earlier it had offered a $500 challenge, but that no one accepted it.

I find no report of any battle of the bands this time, either.

The musicians probably understood the odds of collecting a prize when the competition was in someone else’s home town and the music was judged by “impartial” listeners.

Some bands just weren’t up to the challenge.

The Planters’ Banner offered this frank assessment when Franklin’s band first formed, “The Brass Band in this place is making fine progress, and will, in a few weeks, make up for some of the hideous noises produced by their first efforts.

"A thousand bullocks smelling of blood and roaring, bellowing and bleating, aided by owls, donkeys and all the noisy bipeds and quadrupeds in creation could barely have given a concert equal to those of the first two evenings after the trumpets, trombones, &c, arrived from the city. Some called the company ‘a licensed charivari,’ . . . [but] our band had to make a few hideous noises before they made music. …

"In two months we expect to see the band able to give some blasts that will astonish everybody.”

You probably remember that a charivari was a noisy, annoying serenade made by bleating tin horns, beating spoons on pots, pans, and kettles, and a making a racket with anything else that could make one.

The Franklin band seems to have improved above the charivari stage over the next few months, but when it made its first public appearance it was noted as much for its sobriety as for its music.

“This band, which has sprung into existence as if by magic, appeared in public, for the first time,” the Banner reported, “and marched with the procession of the Sons of Temperance and Odd Fellows.

"They performed admirably, and to the satisfaction and delight of all. We shall have no further need of importing brass bands from New Orleans after this; our own is infinitely better, for they give us music; and what is more remarkable, ten of its members belong to the Sons of Temperance. …

"We believe that no other brass band in the South can boast of such a fact.”

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.