Festival-goers enjoying participating in 'a little U.N.'

By HERB BROCK

Staff Writer

As the Olympia Brass Band had the huge crowd at Weisiger Park Saturday morning practically sprouting wings and halos so they could follow the saints as they marched in, no one in the toe-tapping, hand-clapping throng seemed closer to New Orleans jazz heaven than Jeppe Uggerhoej.

"They are great, so very great. It is out of this world," said Uggerhoej, wearing a big smile while he nodded in beat with the Olympia band and appeared like he really wanted to be in that number. "This is what I think of when I think of New Orleans jazz music."

And Danville was as close to New Orleans, not to mention what he called "jazz heaven," as Ubberhoej had ever been. His exposure to American jazz mainly has been from tape cassettes, compact disks and performances by groups back home who "try but don't really do this form of American jazz like I believe Americans can."

His lack of exposure to the real thing is understandable. After all, Copenhagen is long way from the French Quarter. Denmark is a long way from Bourbon Street. And Uggerhoej is a long way from home.

The 24-year-old Dane was able to sample an hors d-ouvres-size version of Mardi Gras because he and the other members of the Tivoli Ensemble from Denmark were in Danville to provide the Olympia Brass, other bands and the festival-goers with a small taste of Danish musical pastry, brass band style.

"Our sounds can be sweet, but nothing is sweeter than what this Olympia can produce," said Uggerhoej.

This musical mutual admiration society was formed as bands and festival-goers alike enjoyed a smorgasbord of brass band music. In years past, the Great American Brass Band Festival has featured a variety of American and Canadian styles. This year's brass buffet, the 11th, is featuring styles from Europe, including British, German, Japanese, Danish as well as North American.

This year the event could be called the Great Global Brass Band Festival. And, according to many in the hordes of festival-goers, both the music and the weather were hot.

Chance for togetherness

"This is not just a musical event. It's a community event," said Jimmy Singleton of Dan-ville, who has attended almost every festival. "And with the foreign bands added this year, it's a worldwide community event."

Singleton, an African American, said he likes to see people from all ethnic and racial backgrounds gathered together. The band festival provides a "rare opportunity" for such togetherness, he said.

"The festival has a good mix of different kinds of brass music from around the country and the world," said Singleton. "And the crowd watching it comes from all 50 states and from different countries. They are mostly whites, but there are blacks here, too.

"The different kinds of music bring the different kinds of people together to a place where there are no barriers, no divisions, where music is the only language and music lovers are the only race. Hey, even the members of the Confederate band are not just getting along with the members of the Union band, but they are clapping and enjoying the music from the all-black Olympia band," he said with a laugh.

"With all the flags flying from standards up and down Main Street representing the counties where the foreign bands are from, with all the bands from around the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe, with all the people from all over, this little town of 15,000 people is like a little U.N., at least for a weekend."

Poodle Republic member enjoys

And a member of the Poodle Republic also enjoyed the foreign flavor and overall bonding-of-human-beings-by-brass-bands atmosphere of this year's festival.

"I attended a performance (Friday) of a band with representatives from several of the American and foreign bands and, when this international band played, it brought tears to my eyes," said a pink poodle skirt and saddle shoes-wearing Margaret Payne of Columbus, Ind., a member of an elderhostel whose members dressed up in 1950s attire and rode around town on bicycles from that decade, like her Schwinn Starlet. "The band members from around the world were playing together and the people from different parts of this country and Europe and Asia were enjoying it together.

"Music is truly the international language. If we had concerts like this all over the world, all the time, I really don't think there would be another war," said Payne.

Speaking as both an attraction and a festival-goer, Del Nich-ols of Findlay, Ohio, likes the new attractions.

"This is our eighth year coming and I love it every year," said Nichols, a member of an antique bicycle club that has made the GABBF a regular stop on its tour of regional fairs, festivals and parades. "And one thing that keeps us coming back is that they try to add something new and different every year.

"Most parades and festivals of this kind are dying. We've been to them and we've seen the dying first-hand," Nichols said, strumming the spokes to the 56-inch-in-diameter wheel of his towering, circa 1887 unicycle to the lively beats of a brass band performing at Weisiger Park.

Skip Stubblefield is convinced that it will be a long time before the Danville festival and the parade that's a high point of it will die.

"This festival gets better and this parade gets bigger every year, and it's fun to be part of it all," said Stubblefield of Rome, Ga., a member of the 8th Confederate Regiment who is at his fourth GABBF and was dashing to get in line for his fourth GABBF parade.

He thinks it's especially fun this year, performing alongside bands from other countries.

"Sometimes, when you're a member of a brass band and you know most people like other kinds of music, you start to feel like you're the only people who care about this kind of music," said Stubblefield. "But when you come here, you discover there are not only other musicians but a lot of other regular people who share the love of brass band music. And, this year, you know the love is shared around the world."

A newcomer to the festival couldn't force a note out of

Stubblefield's cornet if her life depended on it, but she shared the musician's assessment of the festival.

Rumors were true

"I just moved here in March from Jacksonville (Fla.) and one of the first things I was told about Danville was how wonderful this festival is, and now I can see why people told me that," said Jill Winter, sitting in a little Radio Flyer wagon with her boys, Joshua, 5, and Nathan, 3, and clapping to the music of a band.

"Since I've never been before, I can't make any comparisons, but I like the idea of having bands from other countries. It adds an international flavor and keeps things interesting, and that's what keeps festivals going," said Winter.

Marvon Smith, a veteran festival-goer from Danville, said adding new themes, bands or attractions keeps the love and togetherness going from year to year and is "vital to the survival of the festival."

"I really like the idea of adding foreign bands. I really like the festival and don't think they should tinker too much with what has been a successful event, but you have to add some new things to keep it fresh," said Smith.

Imports are a good thing

Imports are a good thing, agreed Wanda Quillen of Jessamine County. She was talking about music from around the world, not world trade.

"I like most things as they are, but I'm open to a few changes every year," said Quillen, who has attended most of the previous 10 festivals.

"For instance, I like the idea of importing bands. It adds a new twist. I don't want a totally new festival, but I look forward to a few new wrinkles and twists, here and there."

And the man who is in charge of adding the new wrinkles and twists, as well as overseeing the whole festival, said such additions are important in the "evolution" of the event he co-founded in 1990.

"Some people may not realize it, but this festival has been evolving since the beginning, and adding the bands from Europe and Japan is this year's example of that," said George Foreman, the secretary-general of this "little U.N."

"As we look for other new things for next year's festival, I'd like to see this aspect of having foreign bands perform continued for future festivals, maybe even become a mainstay of the festival. Maybe we'll try to have three or four foreign bands a year."

Foreman said he was disappointed that not all of the eight foreign bands booked for the festival could make it, but he's happy that most of them did.

"They committed to come and we arranged to have them come, all on faith. This was all new to them and to us," he said. "But we're delighted that those that have come did make it. We think everybody is going to enjoy the foreign flavor."

Ken Imasu was particularly eager to sample the flavor of the brass band from his homeland of Japan.

"I have been here two and a half years and I have been to the last two festivals," said Imasu, president and chief executive officer of Matsushita Floor Care Co., who was snapping pictures of the parade and getting ready to join it. "I enjoyed the first two a lot but I think I will enjoy this one even more because of the bands from Japan and other countries."

Imasu said when he came here back in 1997, his first impression of Danville was a good one. "The place is beautiful and the people are hard-working and friendly, those things I discovered right away," he said.

But he has grown even more impressed with what he sees as a surprising aspect for a small town. "Danville is small but it is not like what people may think of small towns in America. With Centre College and the variety of industries, businesses and people, the city is a place for good music, art and theater," said Imasu.