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BIG BAND SOUND

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By ANNETTE MARDIS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 29, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - The rousing Beach Boys medley he's playing really isn't Frank Parsons' kind of music.

He stopped listening to the hits of the day in the 1950s.

If he were on "Jeopardy" he'd clean up in the "oldies" category.

Then again, maybe not.

"You know what oldies are? They're '80s and '90s! I don't know any of those," Parsons laments from the Richey Suncoast Theatre stage.

His audience can relate. One woman's XM radio never leaves the '40s channel. She likens listening to Frank Parsons Big Band with being back with her high school classmates.

It certainly feels as comfortable as a school letter jacket inside the venerable theater, built by Thomas Meighan's silent screen celebrity in an era when it still seemed possible for New Port Richey to become the "Hollywood of the East."

A musty smell wafts through the matinee idol's former movie house. The towering curtains that shroud the stage are a faded shade of red.

But there's an intimate feel to the place that seems tailor-made for musical memories that swirl as bold as brass and as sultry as a city street after a summer storm.

"It is a great afternoon to reminisce and remember what we 'used to do,'" Maryanne Vollmar-Freeman writes in an e-mail after delighting in Parsons' late-November show from her front-row seat.

This really is your grandfather's music. But it's not ready to be relegated to that junk box beneath the bed or the bargain bin at what used to be called a record store.

It clings tenaciously to its share of the spotlight while waiting - and hoping - for each new generation to "discover" the King of Swing, Lindy Hop, hot licks and horns a plenty.

In the heyday of big band, swing and jazz singers, roughly the mid-1930s to the late-'40s, "orchestras consisted of all the instruments - not just electric guitars. Musicians could actually read music," the Big Bands Database Plus (at http://nfo .net) states haughtily.

" ... Every band had to have both a 'girl' and a 'boy' singer, and (you may not believe this) the crooners actually sang lyrics that the public could understand. The hallmarks of these singers were their impeccable phrasing and the ability to convey the emotional meaning of the lyrics. Good diction and talent were appreciated.

"Unlike most rock, this was real music. Listeners heard all the individual instruments, and had favorite players in every band."

Worshiping At Big Band's Altar

"Maybe if kids start dancing again," Ed Thompson muses, they'll appreciate the music he's enjoyed since his debut at age 11 with his town's dance band.

The retired educator from Ontario plays saxophone and clarinet with Parsons' assemblage and also with the Clearwater Concert Band because it's "great fun" and he feels obliged to "keep the music in front of people."

While some see a bleak future for big band, others point to the wealth of talent in this area alone and the opportunity to spread the Gospels According to Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller.

"We play in one or two weddings a year and the young people come up to us and say, 'Awesome! We've never heard music like this,'

" Parsons says.

TV's "Dancing with the Stars" gets credit for drumming up interest, too.

"I am glad to see the young people of today dancing to real music, not the rap and junk music," Vollmar-Freeman's e-note continues. "The music of today I think is horrible."

As vice president of the nonprofit Thursday Musicale, she knows a little something about the local entertainment scene. The organization's 50-woman nonsectarian chorus - now in its 60th year - presents monthly concerts from October through April.

Henry Fletcher directs the singers and also leads the Richey Concert Band he founded more than 35 years ago. Preteens to seniors have wielded woodwinds, brass and percussion in instrumental arrangements of marches, holiday favorites and familiar tunes like "When You're Smiling," "When I'm 64," "Moonglow" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

"For three seasons of the year, the band can be heard in schools, parks, retirement centers, community centers and the like - providing free entertainment that sounds like it should require a ticket," boasts www.richeyconcertband.org.

The Bartow-born Fletcher's musical contributions in west Pasco include 27 years teaching music at Mittye P. Locke Elementary School; directing choirs, arranging music and playing keyboard for the praise team at First United Methodist Church of New Port Richey; and playing lead trumpet in the pit orchestra at the Richey Suncoast Theatre for more than fifteen years, according to his online biography.

Sonny LaRosa is another musical stalwart, having traveled around the country playing trumpet with jazz bands during the early days of swing music. He's also mastered the piano, can play most other band instruments and spent many years as a music instructor and band leader, according to www.sonnylarosa .com.

He's largely devoted the past two decades to America's Youngest Jazz Band, his 23-piece compilation of 4- to 13-year-olds who play LaRosa's customized arrangements. Their mission is to encourage others their age to snare a seat on the big-band wagon.

"I tried for 23 years to place music in the same category of interests as sports," the Clearwater-area resident says on the Web site. "I guess it will never be, but in the 500 or so who have been in the band I'm certain they have no regrets and have the memories and happiness of a lifetime."

Teens to octogenarians, meanwhile, donate their time and talent to present seven Richey Community Orchestra concerts each year, which is "unprecedented for a community orchestra," the 51-year-old group's Web site states. More than 50 amateur and professional musicians are members, according to www.richey communityorchestra.com.

That's merely a minute sampling of what's happening musically in the area: big band, swing and otherwise.

"Would you believe we never played that beyond the first verse before," Parsons asks after the last notes of a collegiate fight song fade. "It was kind of like a rehearsal for us."

Soft Seats And Reliable Relics

His style as band leader and master of ceremonies is decidedly low-key and familiar. It's no surprise the folks in the cushy seats (i.e. not the performers, who sit on metal folding chairs) feel comfortable enough to share and shout comments here and there.

Those band/audience exchanges feed off Parsons' dry humor and the performers' playfulness. On this day, Parsons gives some Red Hat Society women their due; keeps a running recital of the previous night's college hoops scores; gives away two free tickets to the next show; and pokes fun at his band mates, and himself, when he holds up a baritone horn and announces, "I'm going to try to play this thing. Like some of us in the band it's kind of a relic but it works."

At one point, Parsons asks if anybody in the house hails from the Hoosier State. As the Indiana University graduate (class of 1955) kicks off a rendition of "Indiana, My Indiana," a woman in the second row throws both hands in the air and claps gleefully.

The crowd is full of regulars now after starting out small, growing by word of mouth and finally nearly filling the house.

The Nurse And The Army Man

While there are a few dollars to be made, many local big band musicians and jazz singers are in it for love of the genre
.

"You could not make a living at this," assures Liz Antony, a nurse by profession who drives in from Crystal River to sing with Parsons' players.

She grew up in a home where the only permissible music was classical and jazz. When her tastes turned to rock 'n' roll, she'd sneak over to a friend's house to hear those records.

Antony went on to train with a classical soprano and a university choral director; sing with many big bands and several dance and rock bands in Cincinnati; express her love for jazz standards in her debut CD, "Cincinnati Standards"; record 46 minutes of music with the Jerry Conrad Orchestra on "No Moon At All!"; sing to the instrumentals of the late Kenney Poole, dubbed by the editor of Just Jazz Guitar magazine as one of the best in the country; and perform with a big band in Ocala, where husband Tom is an OB-GYN and pediatrician. As a hobby, he ran a recording studio in Cincinnati.

Antony is but one of many locally with such credentials. Fred Nunes trumpets his way through 28 songs with the Polaris Big Band on a CD he hawks while onstage with Parsons. During 20 years in the military, he traveled around coaching trumpeters in other Army bands.

Mike Tranchida, another trumpeter in Parsons' band, graduated from the famed Julliard School of Music.

Parsons had a big band in Columbus, Ohio, from 1960-65 and worked in market research and data processing before retiring to Florida and starting his current group in 1994. Filling out the roster over the years have been retired high school music directors on up the scale to professional musicians hired by the likes of Lawrence Welk, Glenn Miller and Stan Kenton.

Parsons also plays trumpet with the Clearwater Jazz Band and baritone horn in the Deutschmeister Blass Band, which appears at about 20 Oktoberfests a year. Plus he subs in other bands from time to time.

"My formal musical training has been very modest but made up for in enthusiasm and willingness to spend time and money as a band leader," he writes in an e-mail.

Band Of Brothers, Sisters In Song

Liability insurance is killing big bands, Nunes complains.

What he means is that venues that host dances, concerts and other events no longer pick up liability policies, so that expense - about one grand per performance - falls to the bands to pay.

Such dancing on the grave of big bands, though, started even before Wolfman Jack began rocking around the clock. Historical events such as the 1946 musicians' strike and World War II took an early toll, according to Big Bands Database Plus.

Cultural trends and recording industry advancements played a part, too.

Big band still has periods of resurgence: Remember when The Brian Setzer Orchestra and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy put a swing in pop music's step in the late 1990s?

And devotees of the big and brassy can be counted on to pass along the love to future generations.

"I always think there will be a little niche for this type of music," says Johnnie Russell, a Brit who sings and drums with the Parsons band.

Still, he and others in the local scene shake their heads regretfully when assessing big band's big-picture prospects.

"It's the only other original form of American music" aside from bluegrass, Antony says. "It would be a shame to let it die."

To view a slideshow of a performance, go to http://www2.tbo.com/static/photo_gallery/tbo-special-reports-news-photo-gallery-big -band/ Assistant Pasco team leader Annette Mardis can be reached at (727) 815-1085 or amardis@tampatrib.com.

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