Playin', playin' in the band

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A Dixieland band that is.
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One of the more tongue in cheek traditions of this annual musical retreat is the Brass Band Ensemble. What is so tongue in cheek about a brass band class you might ask? (After you got over asking yourself why they have a brass band class at a folk music weekend in the first place, and the answer to that is I don't have the faintest idea. It's more than a bit odd.)
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What makes this particular brass class unique is its musicians. To attend, you must NOT actually know how to play any brass instrument. Only those who've never touched an instrument (or at least not since last year's class) can participate. Personally I sit it out but my son Itai, the eight year old trumpet virtuoso you see in the photo above, loves it. He positively flew back from lunch so as not to miss even a minute of instruction. The guy who runs it has a large assortment of old beat up brass instruments which he passes out to whoever wants to publicly humiliate themselves perform with the band in that evening's concert. They spend about an hour learning, sort of, how to actually play a note, or in a good year two, and then a few hours later they make their big debut. Shockingly, the sounds they made this year were actually (almost) recognizable as a song. I wouldn't go so far as to say music, but it did bear faint resemblance to a song.
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The whole thing is a scream, though I think seeing them all come out in costume is the high point of the performance...
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Visit Sepia Scenes for more of that old time music religion photography.
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