Aberdeen Elks band a fine-tuned fraternity
They assemble on fold-out chairs clustered in a cavernous oak-floored ballroom and pick up tubas, clarinets, flutes, trombones, trumpets, French horns and saxophones.
"Let her rip," declares Craig Wellington, a portly, silver-haired man who waves a slender white baton.
For the next 90 minutes, the Aberdeen Elks Lodge band practices its music — bold, brassy, joyful tunes played with skill and more than a little attitude. A selection of George M. Cohan tunes that includes "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Give My Regards to Broadway." Then an upbeat "Tequila" that somehow segues into a Lee Greenwood classic, "God Bless the USA."
These Elks carry on a musical tradition that began in 1920 and has stayed strong even in recent decades as the lodge, No. 593, has struggled to attract new members, and Aberdeen — a hardscrabble timber town — has suffered through mill closures and layoffs.
The band members also claim an honor first bestowed in 1973 in Chicago, where their play earned them the title of the first — and only — national Elks Lodge band. And on Sunday, they will reaffirm their spot in club history by playing before some 12,000 people expected at this year's national convention in Reno, Nevada.
The band is a fraternity within a fraternity. Members take their music seriously but also savor cocktails, poker games and stories from the road. While once riding a city bus through Chicago, they broke into song. The tunes were so sweet that other passengers stayed on the bus, missing their stops, so they could hear more of the impromptu performance.
On a trip to a convention in New Orleans, the band shipped a bass in a cardboard coffin — the box was available and just the right size for the big instrument. When it arrived, the band lined up as pallbearers and carried it into their hotel.
Those not retired have kept their day jobs. Among the employed are a dentist, judge, log scaler, foundry workers and a high-school band teacher. Others are on the back end of their 60s and 70s.
The oldest — a slender, raspy-voiced clarinetist named Ernie Pearson, is 84, a retired barber who has played in the band for 56 years. His tenure, however, is surpassed by Bill Jones, a 79-year-old studio photographer who claims that for 57 years he has played a 37-pound, tubalike instrument known as the sousaphone.
"I'm getting on in age now — and that horn is getting pretty heavy," Jones said. "But I like to keep active, and I like camaraderie. There's a lot of memories over the years."
For decades, the band was a male bastion. But that tradition was broken five years ago when Joy Farrell joined as a flutist.
Farrell is a former member of the Seattle Philharmonic who, after the death of her husband, moved to Montesano — some 10 miles east of Aberdeen — to be closer to her daughter. She wanted to keep playing music, and found herself drawn to the Elks Lodge.
"I was scared, and they were scared," Farrell said. "I was afraid of invading their male space, their territory. But I appreciated their musicianship and wanted to be a part of it."
"We welcomed her," said Bill Newman, an alto saxophonist. "She's a good flute player — and we needed a good flute player."
Farrell now has an easy rapport with the group, and retires after practices to the band's room on the third floor of the Elks Club. It's outfitted with a bar and a faded felt-covered card table, and is cluttered with memorabilia.
Pictures on the wall include a photo of the original 1920 group, then a formal string orchestra. Over time, the group morphed into a band, which could play a Flag Day concert or march in a Fourth of July parade.
In '50s, the Aberdeen Elks bands enjoyed a kind of heyday. The musicians loved to play, often practicing until the Elks Club shut down. A few members were reluctant to give up their horns and would retreat to a local brothel to serenade the working ladies between clients.
In statewide competition, Aberdeen dominated a field of about a dozen Washington Elks bands. One year, the Tacoma lodge band, frustrated by Aberdeen's dominance, recruited some professional musicians to help win the title. Still, Aberdeen prevailed.
In the decades that followed, other Elks bands in Washington and around the country shriveled and died as lodge membership declined. Fraternal orders built on ritual, charity works and fellowship had a hard time reaching out — and connecting — to younger generations.
The Aberdeen Elks lodge was not immune. Over the past 20 years, lodge membership has declined to fewer than 800 members from a peak of about 2,000.
The band has aged, too. Members no longer march, and had to be pulled on a low-boy trailer for their last parade appearance in Westport more than a decade ago.
But the band has endured, tapping into the town's deep musical-talent base. Though Aberdeen is perhaps best known musically as the childhood home of the late grunge-rock icon Kurt Cobain, the high-school band has consistently won state and national acclaim. And as band members graduated, some continued their musical careers with the Elks Band.
"It was an unbelievable high-school band, and players had so much pride and self esteem. And they just didn't want go give that up," said Wellington, a trumpet player in the high-school band who in 1982 assumed the role of conductor of the Elks band.
For those joining the band, it's typically a lifetime commitment. A few members haven't passed muster and left. But for most, there is only one way out.
"You don't retire from this band," said Newman, the saxophonist. "You have to die to get out of this band.''
They've lost five members in the past year but also have recruited three young members in their early 20s.
The band also spawned smaller offshoots, a jazz group and a swing band that plays at Saturday dances that still draw hundreds of people from Aberdeen and the surrounding area.
The Elks band members also did rotating duty at a Friday night bingo parlor that used to raise money to finance the trips to the national Elks convention. The costs of attending the convention have proved substantial, more than $40,000 for tickets and lodging. But after gaining the national title in 1973, the band still tried to make an appearance every few years.
"I always felt that it was important — that it gave the band something to strive for," Wellington said.
In the past decade, that has become a lot tougher as Indian casinos have siphoned off most of the gamblers and wiped out the Elks' bingo business.
This year's appearance in Reno will be the first such trip since 1993, and is being made at the request of Roger True, an Eastern Washington Elk who wanted the band to play as he is nominated to be the Grand Exalted Ruler and lead the national organization.
The band expects to play for a welcoming ceremony Sunday, and then again Monday morning as True is nominated amid confetti and balloons.
At a recent practice, Wellington guided the band through a familiar repertoire. But he wasn't always happy with what he heard.
In an arrangement called "Amber Waves of Grain," the brass came on too strong.
"We're overblowing the trombones. Hold out a little bit."
But he seemed satisfied with a rousing rendition of Louie Louie.
"For a band of old fogies, you play pretty good rock 'n' roll."
Hal Bernton can be reached at 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com.