Eclectic community band shares music with retirement communities

The VFW band practices September to May for their Thursday night performances. (Sandra Kinzer/Madison Commons)

Two Thursdays a month, slow, easy notes fill the recreation room of St. Mary’s Care Center. A conductor’s comments spoken in a measured, deliberate voice punctuate the music. 

“You’re telling a story, you’re telling a story,” conductor Jim Latimer tells them.  

Latimer conducts the all-volunteer Madison Volunteer Community Band, also called the VFW band. The band performs at retirement homes and senior care centers two Thursdays a month September through May with a brief hiatus in December. On the Thursdays they don’t have a scheduled performance, the band rehearses.   

The VFW band’s first performance of the year will take place on Jan. 21, and with the holidays over, their performances will help brighten the long winter months ahead for seniors.  

At St. Mary’s Care Center, residents are wheeled in to listen to the band. 

“They’re transformed. [One lady] never talks except on the night after music,”  Latimer’s wife MJ said.

Band member Dion Mills, 56, talked about how as some seniors get older, they grow increasingly out of touch with the world but can still appreciate music.

“They may not remember what they had for dinner, but they remember the words to songs or just the melodies themselves,” Mills said. 

Mills, who plays saxophone and clarinet, joined about eight years ago and was surprised at how satisfying it was to play for retirement communities.

“It became one of my favorite public service things to do,” he said.

The band members themselves are no young crowd. Many have gray hair. One owns a Kwik Trip and another is a doctor. A few are retired music and math teachers. They also come from all over Dane County.

For Lonna Brooks, 57, driving to the practices takes about an hour from her home in Rio, Wis., but the distance doesn’t bother her. 

“I'm one of those people that if you say ‘Oh do you wanna play for…’ I don't even wait for you to finish the sentence. I say ‘sure!’” she said.

There are other community bands closer to her home, but she’s stayed with VFW for more than a decade. She said she enjoys how many different songs the band is able to play throughout the year, as every month they get a new set of songs.

Deb Kabler, 50, has been with the band for more than 20 years.

“We do it for Jim,” she said. “And we do it for the people that we play for… the whole idea behind this organization is to bring music to people who might not otherwise have the opportunity.”

A steady, dynamic conductor

In between songs at a rehearsal, Latimer told a story about his grandson.

“He’s perfect! He’s got five fingers and five toes!”

Sometimes he chided the group for being out of beat or out of tune.

“Even a grasshopper could tell [you’re messing up]!” he said.

The band started way back in 1950 with conductor Dr. Elmer Ziegler and was sponsored by VFW Post 1318, where they also practiced. Latimer took over in 1981. A retired professor in the UW School of Music, Latimer also used to conduct the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra. He now leadsfour Madison-area music groups, including the summer Capitol City Band.

Kabler said Latimer has high expectations for his musicians and is good at explaining what he wants out of them.

“I have a very accurate right hand that conveys the beat,” Latimer said. “The rest of me just kinda fills in around that right hand.”

Though his demeanor conveys otherwise, Latimer, 81, said his energies are “running down” so the band will need to find a replacement for him at some point. Until then, he enjoys leading the band in its bimonthly performances. 

What keeps him with the band is “the sheer importance of music in our lives… music is part of sound... and sound is one half of whatever we are.”

Latimer likes telling stories and has his share of tales from his time as a conductor, including one where the band walked into the concert room at the VFW post to find a few inches of water covering the floor. Then there was the time when his pants starting falling down during a concert. Both potential crises were averted–the members mopped up the floor and Latimer caught his pants before they fell all the way down.

“He’s a fascinating person,” said Brooks, who plays French horn. “He’s not always easy to work for. His own attention to detail is supreme… he hears every note you play.”