ARTS Summerset Big Band Mike Graziadei and a group of talented performers has been attracting some enthusiastic fans to their summerset big band, performing at dances and other venues around the area. April 2007

Mike Graziadei

If I had known when I started how much work running a band would be, I don't know if I would have had the courage to start the Summerset Big Band. But the fact is that I'm really having fun.

Our big band has 16 instruments, and we play music that features pieces made famous by such bands as Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Harry James. Our theme song is the one used by Tommy Dorsey's band, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You."

Big Band Beginnings

I moved into Summerset seven years ago and became involved with the Summerset Social Club Board. I would play my CDs of big band music at the functions. The residents loved that music!

A year ago last December I was playing some big band Christmas Music and one of my neighbors, Tom Lococo, told me, "We've got to put a band together so we can hear this kind of music live."

I loved the idea as soon as I heard it. I had several experiences putting together bands in the past - more than 50 years in the past, actually. We advertised for perspective band members, and in March 2006 had an organizational meeting attended by nine Summerset musicians.

We recruited through referrals, especially from Bruce Stuart's East County Concert band. Enough joined our band to make up our 16 players. (Ten members of our band from Summerset, on the other hand, also play in Bruce's Concert Band.)

People like Wes Niles, Music Director at Neighborhood Church, and Bruce Stuart help us with arrangements and musicians.

Bruce Stuart, himself, plays trombone with us occasionally. Just like the rest of us, Bruce performs without remuneration. We did, however, let him keep the black shirt that we wear during our performances.

We don't do Elvis or the Beatles. We enjoy all kinds of music, but when we get our instruments out, "big band" is the kind of music we play.

Sometimes I announce a concert by saying, "You're about to hear the greatest music ever written - and written for the 'greatest generation,'" alluding, of course, to Tom Brokaw's 1998 blockbuster by that title.

My Story

I have always loved big band music! When I was young if a band came to town, like Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, Charlie Spivak, or Les Brown and his Band of Renown, I would skip school to attend the performance.

A music teacher in elementary school, named Ms. Wood, encouraged my love for music. She prompted me to play instruments. By the time I entered high school I had taken lessons on the trumpet, French horn, piano, and drums.

In the eighth grade Ms. Wood gave me a little drum set with a bass drum, snare, and one cymbal. I put together a little garage band (living room band, actually). We had cardboard stands and imagined that we were making good music. I really whacked on those drums! We called ourselves The Buddy Lawrence band for reasons that completely escape me. The combo consisted of a trumpet, sax, trombone, bass, and piano, plus me on the drums.

Our pianist in that group was a guy named Torrie Zito. I don't remember if he was any good, I only remember that he borrowed my chair and never gave it back. However, Torrie Zito went on to become the musical arranger for people like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Bobby Darin. He played with Morgana King, Sinatra, and Andre Kostelanetz. He scored John Lennon's "Imagine" album. I was able to keep track of Torrie's career because his mom and my mom were friends. Rose would invite mom and me over for tea and show us photo albums of her amazing son and his exceptional friends.

In college I played a snare drum as a member of the Villanova Marching Band at football games, and also started an 8-piece combo with some classmates. I played a five-piece drum-set. We would play from 8 to midnight for the Saturday Night dances in the college's field house and earn $20 each.

I joined the Navy in 1952 and served four years as a Medical Corpsman stationed in a hospital, at St. Albans Medical Center on Long Island. I gave up music for a while - gave it up for the next five decades actually - until the challenge of the Summerset Big Band called me back into musical action.

The Boys in the Band

The members of the Summerset Big Band are an amazing group of professional level musicians. Jim Peddicord, our bass trombonist, for example, writes original music. He did a great arrangement of Van Morrison's Moon Dance.

Charles (Chi Chi) Herrera, our baritone sax player gives lessons publicly and privately. Plus, he writes original music. Besides working with the Summerset Big Band, Chi Chi plays bassoon in the Livermore Symphony Orchestra.

Len Larsen, our first trombonist, has played with bands for four decades. (Maybe he's played longer than that, but 40 years is enough.) Len played with Bob Ennis' band for 30 years. He arranged the theme song for the Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finny movie, "Two for the Road." He's phenomenal!

Ken Sanders plays first alto, soprano, and baritone sax both with us and with the East County Concert Band. He does a lot of solos including an amazing solo part for an old Duke Ellington song called "Harlem Nocturne." You can hear a pin drop when Ken is playing that number.

Mark Cate is our lead trumpet. He does a fantastic job with everything! He's also with the concert band.

I could write paragraphs about all 16 Summerset Band members if I had enough space. They're just great!

A band is the best example of teamwork I can think of. Each member is dependent upon the others. If someone is off - the brass is too loud, for example - the magic just doesn't happen. But when everyone is on, the result can make the hair stand up on the back of your neck! The music becomes enchanted!

All our songs have solos. But without the band, a solo, whether instrumental or vocal, is only a recital. The band converts a solo into grand entertainment!

Hard Work

Our rehearsals are at Summerset one every Wednesday from seven to nine p.m. The rehearsals take a lot of work. "Practice makes perfect," people say. But that's not accurate. Practice only makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. And that requires concentration and effort. All the players get tired facial muscles after playing something like "Two O'clock Jump" two or three times.

Playing two nearly uninterrupted hours for practice or performance is physically draining. After a gig the performers' lips are often noticeably puffed up. My arms are tired from swinging that baton.

We're playing New Year's Eve 2007 somewhere - at the Nines or at Summerset Orchards. New Year's is a difficult night for us, since we play from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., which is four hours of hard work.

Also, most of us are senior citizens and members of a retirement community, so we don't have the strength and vigor of youth. However, that's offset by the wisdom and experience we've developed over decades of performance.

Worth the Effort

Some members in our audiences love the music as much as we do. We've had people come up afterwards and hand us a check. "Go buy some music," they might say. That knocks us off our feet.

It's wonderful creating something that encourages people to have fun. When we are performing we can tell that people really love our music. We really do feel like we are playing some of the world's greatest music because it speaks to people's hearts. Plus, it reminds us all of a long-ago time when romance was still in fashion.

Our music catches the values and styles of a culture that has largely faded behind a modern façade of music that is accurately epitomized by labels such as "acid," "heavy metal," "punk," and "gangsta."

Call us old-fashioned (we are), but we love playing tunes with titles like Glenn Milller's "In the Mood" and Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" as opposed to more modern melodies like Pussycat Dolls' "Doncha (Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me)" and Chamillionaire's "Rid'n Dirty."

Women have come up to us with tears in their eyes. "Those songs!" they will say. "We used to dance to them decades ago." The music is emotional and brings back memories for everyone.

Don Palmer, a member of the Summerset Singers, was a fighter pilot in World War II. Don is 81 years old, and has had five by-pass surgeries. He sang "Sentimental Journey" with us once.

"Going to set my mind at ease. Going to take a sentimental journey to renew old memories." He was just beaming! We all were! Everyone cheered as he finished. It was a great moment!

The best thing of all is seeing members of the younger age group come to hear the band. When we perform at the Nines we get many older folks, of course, but we also attract younger people as well. It's great to see those 30-somethings out on the dance floor jitterbugging as though the past five decades never happened.

Some headline bands charge $10 thousand for a two-hour performance. Glenn Miller died during World War II, but 60 years later his band is still going on regular tours and being directed by a trombonist who actually played with Glenn Miller during his heyday. They're earning big bucks for playing an hour-and-a-half in a night.

We try to get enough to pay for our music, stands, and lights - donating to charity anything that's left over. We're playing for the love of the playing! For the love of the music!

We are trying to limit our performances to two per month. We play every other month for a Sunday Afternoon Tea Dance at the Nines. No actual tea is involved in this, but the bar gets a lot of business.

We did a March 2 Dinner Dance at the Brentwood Senior Center that was set up by Brentwood Parks & Recreation. On March 8 we played at a St. Patrick's Day Party at Summerset Vista. We're playing at the Antioch Holy Rosary Church for a Dinner Dance on April 1.

Plus, we're already scheduled for an Agape Villages Black Tie Benefit on September 8 at the Lone Tree Golf Course. The calendar is filling up fast.

I'm the band director, plus the organizer, manager, chief cook, and bottle washer. It's sometimes nerve-wracking trying to get everything to happen when it needs to, but it's all fun. The music keeps us happy; it keeps us feeling young!

For more information, or to learn of upcoming performances, contact Mike at mjgraz@sbcglobal.net).