Harmon’s Histories: Missoula City Band kicks off summer concerts this Wednesday

By Jim Harmon

We’re just a couple of days away from another season the Missoula City Band outdoor concerts at Bonner Park – a great way to kick off summer!

This year’s kickoff show with conductor Gary Gillette will begin at 7:30 p.m. with a salute to the Big Band era.

As you may know, Missoulians have been band-fans as far back as 1874, when the Missoula Coronet Band was formed, “under the instruction of the efficient teacher, Professor A.B. Charpie.”

The Weekly Missoulian wrote, “Additional instruments have been ordered, increasing the number to nine, and others will perhaps be added during the fall. Not withstanding the arduous labor connected with it the interest is kept up, and the band will be a success.”

But as I’ve previously written, the editor of the Weekly Missoulian back then was decidedly not a fan.

In the May 28, 1874 edition of the paper he declared, “The brass band, we judge, has followed after the many enterprises of the kind heretofore originated – plenty of wind to spare, but no money! Cayuses are cheap in comparison with horns.”

While professing to have wanted the band, he then reveled in the difficulty boosters were having in raising funds, and expressed his past experiences with well-meaning but inept musicians.

“There is nothing under the broad and round canopy of the heavens calculated to awaken the worst attributes of sinful human nature, and to make a man talk back to his widowed grandmother, than the remorseless grinding of those brazen, serpentine, long winded, coronets, altos, baritones, and a thousand other outfits of the same ilk.”

By the fall of 1874, however, the band was “gaining rapidly in proficiency.” The press became more supportive, including this review: “We expect soon to have a band that will be highly creditable to our town and the persevering gentlemen who comprise this horn-blowing association.”

By 1925, Missoula had a total of six bands: Missoula City Band, Missoula high school band, Daily Missoulian band, State University Grizzly band, Masonic band, and a Boy Scout band!

All of them gave great performances and were extremely popular.

On July 1, 1925, “Hundreds attended the concert given by the Missoula City Band at the West Side park and enjoyed the program presented by Director Lawrenson and his players. Refreshments in the form of ice cream was served by the ladies, the proceeds to be applied to the fund for the improvement of the park.”

The local newspaper at the time put together its own group with the moniker, the Old Reliable Missoulian-Sentinel Silver Coronet and Concert Band, making its first public appearance in the Garden City in February, 1925.

The paper wanted “to add to the gaiety of life in our much beloved city of Missoula and to strengthen the bond of good fellowship and loyalty that prevails in the Missoulian office.”

“A liberal portion of concert receipts will go to the fund to restore the little victims of the infantile paralysis plague.

Meantime, the State University announced “Albert H. Hoelscher of Davenport, Iowa (would) direct its band in the coming year.” At the same time, the Missoula Boy Scout Band was revived, making its debut at courthouse square, to a “hearty welcome by hundreds of citizens who gathered to hear the concert.”

But the Scout band was short-lived. By December 1925, the local press reported “the organization had been disbanded.” The Missoula High School band opened its ranks to any former member of the Boy Scout band, but few joined.

Only the Masonic band seemed to be doing well. Three hundred persons attended the Masonic picnic in July at Milltown’s Riverside Park, at which the band played.

Even now, one hundred years later, bands of all stripes (from high school to university to city bands) are still extremely popular throughout Montana.

Missoula City Band Conductor Gary Gillette is readying his group for another season of summer concerts in the park (7:30 p.m. every Wednesday at Bonner Park).

The opening gig on June 18 will salute the Big Band era. Check out the band’s full season offerings at missoulacityband.org.

Long live the city band tradition!