R.B. Hall Band Brings Music of Yesteryear to Oakland Park
It was a perfect summer evening, hazy but not too hot. At least four dozen people, some at picnic tables or on benches, some sitting in fold-up lawn or camp chairs, some sitting in cars with windows rolled down listened attentively as lively marches played on brass and woodwinds wafted up the slope from a lakeside gazebo.
This was the scene Tuesday evening, August 13, when the R.B. Hall Memorial Band performed in Oakland’s Waterfront Park. Founded some 55 years ago, the band currently has around two dozen members, ranging in age from their late teens to their late eighties, playing trumpets, sousaphones, trombones, clarinets, flutes, saxophones, and other wind instruments.
Composed of unpaid musicians, the R.B. Hall Band is one of at least a dozen community bands currently performing in Maine. Community bands allow amateur musicians who played in high school to continue to do so long after they graduate. Indeed, among the R.B. Hall Band’s current complement are a father, a daughter, and a grandfather, all from the same family.
The Oakland concert lasted a little over an hour. The program included several marches by R.B. Hall, as well as popular, sentimental, and patriotic fare, such as “New York, New York,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” “(Won’t You Come Home) Bill Bailey,” “God Bless America,” a medley of songs about animals using “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” as a refrain, and as the grand finale, “Seventy-Six Trombones” from beloved Broadway musical The Music Man.
The band dedicated their concert in general and the last work in particular to Selma Pulcifur (1927 – 2023). A lifelong resident of Oakland, Pulcifur was the last surviving charter member of the band. She picked up the trombone in high school in 1944 and never put it down. She played in the band throughout its history and held various band offices, including a stint as president. She died early last December, five weeks after her 96th birthday.
The band’s namesake, Robert Browne Hall, was born on June 30, 1958 in Bowdoinham. Although not nearly as well known today as his contemporary, John Philip Sousa, R.B. Hall, as he was commonly called, was internationally renowned in his own day as a cornetist, composer, and band leader. At various times, he led the Richmond Cornet Band, the Bangor Band, the Waterville Military Band (which he also founded), and the Colby College Band. He also performed in and directed other ensembles in Maine and beyond. He composed 62 marches and at least 40 other works. He died in Portland in 1907, three weeks shy of his 49th birthday. In 1981, Gov. Joseph E. Brennan signed a bill thereafter designating the last Saturday in June as R.B. Hall Day in the State of Maine.
The R.B. Hall Band is currently active only in the summertime. It rehearses on Tuesday evenings from mid-April through Labor Day at Williams Elementary School in Oakland. Many of its members perform in other bands during the rest of the year.
The band will perform again at the Clinton Fair on Saturday, September 7, at 1:00 p.m. To see pictures and watch videos of past performances, you may visit the band’s Facebook page.
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