I just returned from two weeks in Cape May N.J. a lovely beach resort at the southern tip of New Jersey. It is said that Wallis Warfield Simpson had her debutante coming out party there and earlier I read that Henry Clay used to frolic on the beach there. Currently they have free band concerts on the park gazebo and last week it was the Congress Street brass band entertaining free of charge. These local community bands are made up of music teachers both active and retired. They began with a Sousa march and ended with the Stars and Stripes Forever. They recruited a retired teacher to play the piccolo solo. This scene could be reenacted across middle America - it was right out of Norman Rockwell. About one hundred years ago my mother would take the trolley car to Willow Grove Park just outside of Philadelphia to hear the real John Philip Sousa in concert there. His music lives on. And you do need that piccolo player to make it all happen.
tjs
Next - TBA
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