Band back together after music saved
SLIPPERY ROCK — The Balcony Big Band, or at least its heart — its assemblage of music charts — was literally on its way to the landfill when it was serendipitously saved in one of those “you can’t make this stuff up” stories.
“It’s one of the more bizarre stories I’ve ever heard about a jazz band,” said David Glover, Slippery Rock University associate professor, who teaches jazz history at the university and is the BBB’s drummer.
The term “big band” is used to describe a genre of music, popularized during the swing era in the 1930s and ’40s played by a large jazz ensemble, usually consisting of more than 10 musicians and full saxophone, trumpet, trombone and rhythm sections.
The sheet music played by the 18-member Balcony Big Band not only appears as if it predates the band’s inception in 1988, but even the swing era entirely.
That’s because the BBB’s original collection of sheet music, that it still uses for shows, has endured fire and water damage and coffee stains that make it look like ancient scrolls.
Musicians typically keep the same charts for years because of the cost and inconvenience of making copies, but the BBB’s printed notes took a beating for a vagabond big band that rotated venues nearly as often as its cadre of members.
The crates of the band’s original sheet music were exposed to musty storage closets at night clubs, one was damaged by fire. It was later salvaged from curbside trash collection one morning more than a decade ago when the now ex-wife of the group’s founder attempted to dispose of it.
“The collection is priceless because there are so many tunes in those books. There are hundreds of compositions and if you were to buy them on their own — if they are still in print, which many are not — it would cost $40 or $50 each. Some books look like they are from the 1800s on parchment paper with burnt edges. Many are almost illegible,” Glover said.
The man credited for resurrecting the BBB was once its most dedicated audience member.
Joe Herndon, a 2000 SRU graduate with a degree in music education, started going to BBB shows in 1995 when the band played at its namesake, The Balcony, a venue in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood that emulated New York City’s upscale supper clubs. It hosted big bands on Monday nights, in the big-band tradition.
“I would beg, borrow or steal to get from Slippery Rock to Pittsburgh to hear this band,” said Herndon. “I was young and starry-eyed and I said if I could be in this band someday, then I would have made it as a musician.”
Two years later, in 1997, The Balcony closed, leaving the band without a place to play. It would bounce around to different clubs in Pittsburgh before reaching a coda, or at least an indefinite rest note, in 2003.
“It was difficult for big bands,” said Glover, who sat in on drums for a few shows at the Chapel of Blues, home to the BBB from 2002-03. “One place after another would have the band and then it would close.”
Herndon, also a member of a Pittsburgh salsa band called Azucar, played at Dowe’s on 9th, another now defunct Pittsburgh jazz club that was a brief home for the BBB. That’s where he was first invited to sit in with the BBB when its founder, H.B. Bennett, needed a trumpet player.
“I became friends with the guys in the band and that was instrumental in starting my career as a professional freelance musician,” said Herndon, who now supplements his freelance gigs by teaching lessons.
Not long after the BBB disbanded, Bennett moved to North Carolina with his then-wife, and during his transition the band’s sheet music found its way to the trash at a home in Gibsonia.
A neighbor noticed the collection on the curb, with folders embossed “BIG BALCONY BAND,” and called the band director at Pine-Richland High School, Dave Supinski, who was familiar with the jazz scene in Pittsburgh.
Supinski rescued the books before the trash was picked up that day and the books were stored in a closet at Pine-Richland. Years later, Supinski’s successor, Brian Scott, shared them with Herndon, who was a substitute teacher at Pine-Richland at the time and was Scott’s former student-teacher.
“He presented me with all of the sheet music, the whole library of the Balcony Big Band, I was like, ‘Where’d you get this?’” Herndon said. “When I (received the sheet music) that’s when I decided I should find a place for this band to play again.”
Herndon assembled the band and called on former members and freelance musicians in the Pittsburgh area, and, most importantly, he found a place to play: Jergel’s Rhythm Grille in Warrendale. The venue provided the BBB a paid gig every other Monday night and even a place to store its crates of sheet music.
