Brass Band Festival Rings Through Town

“One, two, one, two, three, four,” counts pianist Dick Domek, 64, kicking off “Ain’t She Sweet” as the Walnut Street Ragtime Ramblers launch into the 1927 hit song during last year’s Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, Ky. (pop. 15,477).

Wearing black derbies and vests, David Anderson, 69, plays the clarinet; Dennis Davis, 47, strums the banjo; David Hummel, 41, blows the cornet; and Bob Hackett, 66, keeps time on the tuba as the Lexington, Ky.-based combo performs a 50-minute show on the open-air stage in Weisiger Park.

In the audience, Evelyn Egolf, 76, waves a small American flag to the beat of the classic jazz tune. “I like the music, of course, but also the patriotic feel,” says Egolf, of Loudon, Tenn., sporting a red, white and blue scarf.

Each June, downtown Danville comes alive with the sounds of clarinets and cornets, French horns and flugelhorns, trumpets and trombones, and saxophones and sousaphones during the old-fashioned music festival, replete with a fire engine-led parade, an evening picnic in front of the main stage on the Centre College campus, and an instrument “petting zoo,” where children can experiment and make their own music.

“It meets a need for good, wholesome entertainment of a certain Americana style,” says Ron Holz, 61, the festival’s artistic director. “It captures a spirit of the country.”

And sometimes the essence of another century. Ralph Bright, 5, of Lexington, Ky., squirms in his father James’ lap, eagerly waiting for Saxton’s Cornet Band to take the stage. Why? “Because they play Civil War-era music and they wear red coats,” Ralph says.