On the record ... with Dee Palmer

Dee Palmer is something of a DeKalb institution.

The DeKalb Municipal Band has followed the baton of Palmer, 96, every summer since 1948. In 2009, Palmer was the subject of a documentary by a Northern Illinois University filmmaker. That same year, a group of Palmer's former music students from his days of teaching at DeKalb High School led a fundraising drive to honor the band director. They succeeded in commissioning a bronze statue of Palmer – installed next to the band shell bearing his name – and had enough left over to contribute to a scholarship fund named for the Palmer family.

The DeKalb Municipal Band, founded in 1854, is one of the two oldest, continuous city-supported bands in the nation. In its 157-year history, the band has never missed a season, even through a depression, two world wars and a series of cultural shifts in how Americans approach their music.

And through it all, the band played on.

The DeKalb Municipal Band plays at 8 p.m. every Tuesday through Aug. 23 at the band shell in Hopkins Park, on Sycamore Road in DeKalb. There will not be a concert on Tuesday, July 5; the band will play instead on July 4. All concerts are free and open to the public. For information, visit www.dekalbparkdistrict.com.

Palmer took some time before the first concert of the season Tuesday to talk with MidWeek editor Dana Herra.

MW: Tell me a little history about the band.
DP: The band was started in 1854, and has been playing for the area every year since. It's kind of a record. Without a doubt, it's the oldest publicly-supported city band in the state. It's one of the older ones in the country.

Probably, especially on the East Coast, which was settled before the Midwest, there are a lot of antique bands, but many flourished for a few years, lost support, ended and then started up again. DeKalb has been unique because of the efforts of the community and interest of the community to have maintained the organization this many years.

MW: How long have the concerts been in Hopkins Park?
DP: They started in Hopkins Park probably around 1950. The first concerts were done at two neighborhood parks. The band alternated: one park one week, another park the next week. It was nice for people because they could walk to one or the other and not have to drive, but you had to remember which week was where. When they moved to Hopkins Park, they built the wooden band shell, then the one that's there now, and that was a big step. There was the band shell and facilities for people to sit – the little block parks didn't have seating and things like that.

MW: Doesn't your family have history with the band, as well?
DP: My grandfather was the band director during the 1880s, and my father was the manager of the band from probably 1910-1920. So it has been a kind of a family involvement. There are a lot of personal feelings toward the band because of the family involvement.

MW: What is your personal history with the band?
DP: I played with the band when I was in high school. I was hired as band director in 1948. In the years in between, I was a professional musician and played all over the United States.

MW: What drove you to give up touring to come home and direct the band?
DP: The height of my professional playing was during the Big Band era. It was an exciting time for musicians who wanted to belong to it. I had been on the road for almost 10 years when I got a job with the NBC Orchestra in Chicago. I played with them about five years. After that, I decided wandering musician is not really a family occupation. I came back to DeKalb, took this job, and I've been here ever since.

MW: You taught music for awhile in DeKalb schools, didn't you?
DP: Yes, I graduated from Northern Illinois and I did teach in the high school and grade schools here for a short period of time.

MW: How has the band changed over the past 63 years? How has the audience changed?
DP: There has been a change in the music culture itself. One of the big changes was radio. The next big change was television. With those means of access to the world's greatest music, people's tastes changed. A program you might have played in the '20s, '30s, even '40s would not be the exact program that would attract an audience today.

I've kind of patterned the programs toward the kind of concert you would get if you went to see the Boston Pops. I try to select a variety of music. People have such different tastes, your concerts can't be the same all the time.

MW: Who selects the music for each week's concert?
DP: I do. One of my best jobs is selecting the music for the program. I think of what will entertain the kids who come with their parents and the parents' music. If John Philip Sousa himself walked in here today with his band and played a program from 1920, it would not appeal to the audience we have.

To involve more people, we've added other things. Our opening concert this year was on Flag Day, so we join with the Elks Club to do a Flag Day concert where we salute our flag. On the Fourth of July, we have a big show. It's DeKalb's salute to our veterans and members of the armed forces. Members of the Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other uniformed groups join with us to put on a real salute to the armed forces. ...The city and the park district join together to sponsor this program. We have special artists and different musical entertainment. It's a special show.

MW: Is there a program or theme you're particularly excited about?
DP: Not really. Every one excites me. As you work on one and you complete it, you think, 'That's going to be just right.' Then you get to start another one.

MW: Do you have a personal favorite type of music?
DP: I don't suppose. I try for variety.

MW: Tell me about your family's musical background.
DP: My mother and father were both professional musicians. My mother taught, my dad had an orchestra and my brother played with several big bands and was on Don McNeill's Breakfast Club program, which was so popular. So the whole family was really involved in music.

MW: What was your first instrument? I assume you play several.
DP: Well, I went to school to teach, so as a teacher you have to be familiar with several instruments. Trumpet was my number one professional instrument I played. I also played piano and violin, but those were to assist my teaching.

MW: In 63 years with the band, has retiring ever crossed your mind?
DP: I love what I'm doing. As long as I can do it, I guess I'll do it.

MW: How many members are in the municipal band?
DP: There are 50 members, and we have a technician who handles all our electronics and things like that.

Many of the players I have have been with us a long time. We don't have much turnover, and that really makes it good, because we have so much music to prepare. They have to be good musicians to be able to play without much rehearsal. These musicians read music like reading a newspaper. You get your newspaper, you look at it, it's brand-new and you just read it. They do the same thing with music. They get a new program every week, an hour and a half to rehearse it and (whistles).

MW: When do you rehearse?
DP: We rehearse the evening before every concert. In the summer, if the weather allows, we rehearse at (Hopkins) park. Otherwise, the university has been very generous about letting us use the facilities there whenever we need them.

MW: What has been key to the band's longevity?
DP: I've often wondered about that. So many places used to have bands. I think it's a combination. The public fell in love with the band, and the musicians really love to play. Certainly, there must have been lots of hardships. I've read about needing money to buy uniforms or music, and the public would hold bake sales or dances to raise the money.

When my father was the manager of the band, I remember him telling of the difficulty in maintaining enough money to keep the band going. He heard from a friend that the state of Iowa, which was really a popular band state, had passed a band tax that allowed a certain amount of money to be allocated strictly for the use of city bands. My dad got together with a friend of his who was a state senator to put in an attempt at passing a band tax in Illinois. The first year it failed, but the second year it passed. That was in the 1920s, and from then on, the existence of the band was pretty much assured because there was money allocated each year.

MW: Two years ago, some of your former students had a statue of you put up in the park. What was that like?
DP: I was embarrassed. I said, 'I don't need a statue. That's for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.' But I didn't really have a say in it. They did it anyway. I am eternally grateful and appreciate the effort that went into it and the support they give me, but it was not what I wanted.

MW: I'll bet the scholarship fund was less embarrassing.
DP: My family was so deeply involved in music. My folks had a music store where hundreds of kids came to take lessons. My family really supported music. Our friends got that scholarship organized to honor my family and their support of music in our community.

MW: It's amazing, in today's society, how much of a draw the band concerts still are.
DP: We have huge crowds. It's something from yesteryear. In the days before television, before radio, band concerts were one of only a few ways the public could access music. They were extremely important. Even with all the ways people can get their music now, these concerts are a carryover from those days.