BIG BAND IN THE LITTLE CHURCH Putting on the Ritz in Brentwood
	JuLY/AUGUST 2004

by Wes Niles
Photos by Brad Shifflett

My grandma was born January 2,1900 and I was born on her 49th birthday. Perhaps for that reason the two of us were always very close. When I was just a little boy my grandmother would let me go through her collection of 78 RPM records.

Some of my earliest musical memories include listening with rapture to the beautiful sounds that came pouring out of my grandmother's old RCA Victrola record player. I absolutely fell under the spell of such big band pieces as Tommy Dorsey's 1939 release, "Peckin' with the Penguins."

I was nine years old when I took my first alto sax lesson and three years later I was playing in my first stage band in our SF Junior High School.

To this day I can recall how fun it was playing a big-band version of "I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair." I was a member of the five-piece sax section and really got hooked on that sound. I imagine we were making pretty bad music but from my vantage point in that sax section it sounded like the sweetest music on earth.

Once I got into high school I began playing sports, but still found time to take up studying the oboe. I performed with that instrument in the San Francisco All-City Youth Orchestra.

I experienced a personal transformation at the conclusion of high school, when I gave my life and talents over into the hands of the Lord, and left secular music behind to pursue studies in gospel music at Bethany College in Scotts Valley.

Following graduation I became Minister of Music at a small church and have followed that course for the past three decades, spending the last nine years in my current position at Brentwood Neighborhood Church.

Back to the Beginning
It continually amazes me how things work out in a person's life. Three years ago, while attending the Musicalifornia Music Publishers Conference in San Diego, I heard an arrangement of church hymns played in a 40s big-band style. It was wonderful! The old harmonies and rhythms simply swept me off my feet.

I had a flash of inspiration. "This could work in our church." I decided almost on the spot that I would like to give that a try. The professional pianist in our church, Calla, who is also my wife, was with me at the conference where I heard those big band style hymns. She caught the vision almost as soon as I did.

As I began researching the possibilities, I realized that the contemporary interest in what they call swing music, is a retro-40s sound repackaged for a younger generation.

I began to fantasize about the possibility of bringing church and nightclub together in a way that would capture all the best of big band music in a joyful values-rich context of quality fun and fellowship. So I began to put together the idea for Club Neighborhood.

Everyone in Christian ministry agonizes over the reality that some people who don't go to church avoid the place because of a perception that churches are forbidding places full of unhappy judgmental people who are simply trying to lure others into adopting some religious system.

I thought that a night of big band music might attract such people and provide them with a good time in a church and that some of them might come to realize that the place is actually full of people who love to laugh and enjoy each other's company. Because, in fact, that's exactly what the community experience in our Neighborhood Church is like.

Developing the Vision
From the beginning we set as our goal to provide people in the community with a night of fun as well as upscale entertainment. Calla's favorite show while growing up was I Love Lucy. So together we came up with the shtick that I would be Ricky Ricardo's younger brother and that she would be Lucy's younger sister. Sisters married brothers — we would become Wesley and Calla Ricardo.

We named our venue "Club Neighborhood" with the obvious intent of depicting nightclub styles of music at our Neighborhood Church. We decided to name our band the "Sentimentals," for the equally obvious reason that we were trying to create music that would bring together the old-time values belonging to simpler times, when "babies were babies and apple pie was apple pie."

I don't know if those good ol' days were really good or not, but on the surface, at least, they seemed to incorporate a time of wholesome feelings and healthy attitudes, which the music of that era attempts to capture.

Besides the music, there were other things about the 30s and 40s era that has always captured my imagination — such things as bowling alleys, roller skating rinks, and steam trains.

Especially those steam trains. Since I was a child, along with my love for big band music, I have always had a fascination for locomotives. In fact, I'm building a garden railroad. Nostalgic pictures of those old days often included the steam engines that would come roaring through the neighborhood with an enormous clatter all the while blowing those dark clouds of smoke out of their stacks and those haunting wails out of their whistles.

So as part of the nostalgia of the evenings, Club Neighborhood incorporates railroads into our big band performances, to the extent we can — great old songs like Chattanooga Choo Choo and PE 6-5000. That last one might not seem much like a railroad song to the uninitiated, but the title was the actual phone number of the hotel across from the Pennsylvania RR Station in NYC where Glenn Miller stayed with his band.

Last year we performed that song while our electronic projection system was displaying pictures of old railroad trains. I thought the effect was perfect.

Most especially, the band's theme song is "Sentimental Journey," which must be the greatest marriage of big band sound with a railroading theme ever written.

The Program and the People
The show always begins with an icebreaker. Formerly it was a Dixieland Band. This year we're planning to set the tone for the evening with a barbershop quartet, perhaps.

For the final half hour of each concert we play hymns and gospel songs arranged for the big band, plus God and country songs. We conclude with a tribute to our service people. And we end with God Bless America or some stirring march.

Our encore each year has been "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I suppose it will be again this year, or at least I'll have to move it into the program. I'm going to have some mutinous people on my hands if they come to Club Neighborhood and don't get to hear "Over the Rainbow" at the end of the evening.

We play the people out the door with Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade."

About a third of the musicians who perform at Club Neighborhood are from the church. Our Church Treasurer and Awana Leader, John Krum, for example, holds down the drum section and can lay down a riff that gets the toes tapping, even of the people who are working in the kitchen. Our youngest member is David Lopez, from our church, who is a marvelous trumpet player. Manny Rodriguez is our oldest member, I guess, who, like Ricky himself, takes care of the congas.

The other two-thirds of the Big Band musicians are members of the community, including music teachers, semi-professional musicians, and musicians from other churches. Michelle Brown, on second trumpet, for example, is a Brentwood Music Teacher. Mark Morello, third trumpet, is a teacher. Nancy Torres, one of the singers, is Music Director at the Byron Methodist church. Bruce Stewart plays trombone. His wife, Susan has lead the music program at Liberty High School for over 25 years, and has developed the best chorale program in the Bay Area. These are just some of the local musicians who join us.

My whole family participates, as well. My wife and daughter Margaret, sings. Most thrilling for me is the fact that my daughter, Christine, who is a professional musician from Southern California, comes up here to join us for these concerts as one of the soloists.

When we were a young family we would often sing together in church and at special events. So a big part of the Big Band experience for me is the thrill of getting back into making music with my family.

Our singers are an ensemble, called the Post Modernaires, which is a spoof on Glenn Miller's ensemble, which he called the Modernaires.

Let's Do it Again
We're now in the midst of preparing for our third year of Club Neighborhood. The first time we did this was something of a leap in the dark. We had to convince some skeptics in our church that this was a good use of resources. Some of our people "just didn't get it." I had to ask them to just trust me.

They really are a loving group of people and were willing to trust me and give me a chance to follow this dream. With some fear and trembling we went into the performances that first year and were relieved — even delighted — when the results far exceeded our expectations.

Everybody who ever attended Club Neighborhood, right from that first performance, just loved the experience. I never heard any negative comments. One 30s-something from our church said that she was only interested in Country and Western Music but after hearing our band that first year, she declared that "Sentimental Journey" was one of the greatest songs ever written.

We've had great reception from the community in response to our efforts.

We have fun but try to make the music and the ambiance as up-scale as possible. The price of the admission includes delicious dessert and coffee, served at tables that are covered with fine tablecloths, complete with china and silver table settings. There isn't a paper plate, Dixie cup, or plastic spoon in sight the whole night long. The mood is upscale, the music is top drawer, and the atmosphere is lively.

We sell tickets for the performances for a nominal fee and pay a stipend to the band members, but this is not a for-profit venture. We try to offset some of the cost by selling professional-quality CDs and tapes of the performances, but we still lose money.

Plan to come and join us next time. We spend months putting the program together. You will be surprised — perhaps astonished — by what a quality program can be put on by a bunch of East County people who are joyfully determined to provide a quality good time for the people in their neighborhood.

Dates: August 13-14; 20-21; 8 p.m. For more information, go to brentwoodnc.org/bigband04/index.html.