The swinging’s mutual
in Fox Cities Swing Band

WHAT: Fox Cities Swing Band
WHAT: Looking for more players
WHEN: 7-8:30 p.m. Mondays
WHERE: Peterson Berk Cross law office, 200 E. college Ave., Appleton
COST: $5 per session
INFO: Renee Millard-Police, 920-450-4510 or trumpetinstructor@gmail.com

 By Jim Lundstrom

Ever play the trumpet, trombone, bass or drums and feel the need to swing?

If so, the Fox Cities Swing Band needs you!

“Our saxophone section is a pretty full section. I could probably use another tenor saxo­phone player, but brass is where I’m missing, and I’m actually a trumpet teacher,” said Renee Millard-Police, director of the one-year-old Fox Cities Swing Band.

“We’re looking for trumpet and trombone, drum set player and bass. Those are espe­cially hard – bass and drums. They’re their own breed.”

The Fox Cities Swing Band was formed last June when a group of musical adventurers in the New Horizons Band decided to start an independent side project. “Some of us just love swing music,” said Bob Swain, who plays baritone sax in both the New Horizons band and the swing band. “I was brought up on swing. Here’s a chance to play it.”

The New Horizons concept was founded in 1991 by Roy Ernst of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. Ernst believes anyone can learn to play music. To prove his theory, he started a band for retirees who either had never played before, or had not played since their school days. Today there are scores of New Horizons bands playing across the country. The Appleton New Horizons Band started in Sept. 2004, followed by the New Horizons Orchestra in January 2005. Lawrence University’s Academy of Music is the sponsor.

Janelle Bonson has been involved in music all her life. She sang in choir during her school years, and now teaches piano and plays organ in area churches. “I always wanted to be in band in high school. They had band and choir, but you couldn’t do both,” she said.

When her youngest son went off to college two years ago, she armed herself with an­other son’s trombone and joined the New Horizons Band.

“All of a sudden your children are gone and you want something rewarding to look for­ward to,” she said. “If you don’t fit into that little niche getting into band in high school, you kind of lose the opportunity forever. I’m sure a lot of adults would love to learn an instrument, but it’s a little intimidating when you’re in your 50s to go back. But it’s a lot of fun.”

Last year when someone in New Horizons proposed branching off into a swing band, Bonson was recruited to play piano. “My first reaction was, ‘I’m a church organist’,” she said.

Now she is also a swing band pianist. “I bought a keyboard,” she said. “They had prob­lems hearing me.”

Bonson said playing in the swing band has been musically reinvigorating. “I’ve been playing in church for 20 years and you kind of get into a rut. This makes it interesting again. I’ve always admired jazz musicians because of their improvisational abilities. It just seems so effortless. I’m finding in reality, they know their theory, they know their chords and have a whole lot of experience putting sounds together.”

“I played clarinet in a high school band, but we never played music like this,” Swain said, the bari player. “I’ve only been playing the thing for two years, but it’s challenged me to learn and improve skills of reading and listening to other parts that are going so that it all works as a unit.”

Swain said latching onto the bari sax was kismet. “Two years ago I went to my first re­hearsal of the New Horizons band,” he said. “The director got up and said, ‘I’ve got an old, reconditioned bari in the back of the room. Does anybody want to play it?’ I loved the instrument every since I was a kid, so I said, ‘Sure, I’ll take it.’ The tone, the sound. In the hands of a guy like Gerry Mulligan, it sounds incredible. Gerry Mulligan’s hands are not mine.”
Both Bonson and Swain say they enjoy New Horizons Band, but find the swing band more challenging.

“Jazz is a whole new language,” said Bonson, who is also taking jazz improvisation piano lessons from talented pianist/cellist Matt Turner.

“I think swing is more challenging than the traditional band music New Horizon plays,” Swain agreed. “They’re just harder to play.”

“What’s really neat about it – music education doesn’t have to be only in the school pro­grams. It can be any age,” said Millard-Police, who, in addition to directing the swing band, is a brass instructor in the New Horizons Band.
She said the swing band is also an educational ensemble. “We play a lot of music, but there’s also discussion of the history of jazz and some of the theory,” she said.

In just a year with the swing band, Millard-Police said giant strides have been made. Per­haps the greatest challenge was Louis Prima’s uptempo tune “Swing, Jive & Wail.”

“When we first got together, there was not chance we could make it through that whole song and be in the same place at the end, and now they can get through it,” she said. “Now the goal is, how much faster can we get it, not can we get it. The goal is ever chang­ing because there’s always going to be another point to get to.”
“We’re not perfect, but I think were sounding pretty good,” Bonson said.

“I don’t think Big Band Reunion has to worry about losing any gigs to the Fox Cities Swing Band, but it’s coming,” Swain said.

Unlike New Horizons, which is open to someone who’s never even read a note, players in the swing band should have some playing experience. “Anybody who wants to see what we’re about can come and see,” Millard-Police said. “We play Monday nights in down­town Appleton (7 p.m., 200 E. College Ave.). They can come down and sit in if they want to play with us one night for free, or they can just come in and listen.”