Words & photos: Noelle Williamson
This poster sings to me of the pleasures of an open-air concert on a summer afternoon; when everyone simply shows up, spreads out and plonks themselves down.
No-one knows what the band is going to play, only that they’ll enjoy finding out. My beloved grew up with Durham and Yorkshire colliery bands, and I love Bramley Park anyway, so Sunday, July 6 went straight in the calendar.
Sunday dawned, which is to say that I looked out mid-morning through a rain-speckled window, to see light glimmering wanly through what looked like layers of kapok. Oh boy.
We dithered as showers came and went throughout the morning but, in the end, we put on our waterproof jackets and started walking up.
We crossed Bramley Park, leaning into the wind and rain, me with my brolly angled like a riot shield. Could the concert really go ahead in this? There isn’t a bandstand in Bramley Park, so we weren’t even sure where we were going.
Then we saw a musician trudging doggedly towards us, wheeling a big black tuba case, his blue shirt plastered to his body. We thought the concert must have been cancelled, but no, he stopped to ask other wet walkers for directions. Ah, the Cenotaph! Poor man, he wished he’d parked closer.
As we turned onto the exposed central path, the wind picked up, whipping tree branches in all directions, and the rain turned properly horizontal. The tuba player grimly picked up the pace and we followed. I was grateful that my umbrella still hadn’t blown inside out, but we were also pretty certain that we’d get to the Cenotaph just in time to see the band pack up and go.
However, as we got to the bottom of the path, the rain started easing off to vertical. What a relief!
The tuba player, still dragging his case, hurried away to where the rest of the band were sorting out chairs and music stands beneath a pair of fold-out gazebos in the lee of some broad trees and a dense leylandii. It would be nice to think that he had a spare shirt in that whopping great tuba case.
Looking round, we could see people already encamped under a canopy of mature trees. Unsurprisingly, some were parents of band members.
We were lucky to score a wet park bench, but these couples were veterans of a family life which revolved around drop-offs, pick-ups, waiting outside music lessons, and sitting in on rehearsals and band practice.
Strategically positioned out of the worst of the weather, they were properly gig-ready with camping chairs, umbrellas, sandwiches and flasks of hot tea.
Sally, one of the Friends of Bramley Park, was there to enjoy the music, and so was Christopher. Maureen didn’t know Tutti! She simply wanted to get out of the house and hear some music.
She started telling me about her career as a soprano in a professional choir, and I wish I could have heard more but, unfortunately, there was no time: the Musical Director was introducing herself and the band: Tutti! Leeds Community Concert Band!
I recognised Joelle Braithwaite from when she conducted Bramley Youth Brass at Class Act Youth Theatre’s Summer Show, on a hot June afternoon in Trinity Methodist Church. Today, she was standing coatless in the open, under a lowering sky, so that both the musicians – and we, the scattered audience, could see and hear her.
Still, as she cheerfully told us: “We know about outdoor concerts!” That’s another story that I’d have liked to hear, but the rain had stopped, more people were hurrying through the bottom gate, and Joelle was not going to waste any time.
Turning back to the musicians, she raised her baton, paused briefly, all eyes on her, and nodded. The band launched into the Star Wars theme by John Williams. What a great opener for a brass band concert!
People continued to arrive as Star Wars rang out. With every bench already occupied by the time the band played Happy, a small group settled in the protective embrace of the Cenotaph.
A romantic arrangement of Pure Imagination felt made for a slow dance. Maureen said it was far too slow for even the slowest foxtrot (she had also been an exhibition dancer) but it was still gorgeous to sway to.
Then we transitioned though a peppy number to – The Time Warp! Joelle said we were welcome to join them, but it seemed that no-one was up for a jump to the left or even a step to the right. We pulled our hoods in ti-i-ight, for fear that it might rai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ain… and the Band Played the Time Warp agaaaiiiin…
Next was –
Isn’t She Lovely?
The tuba, trombones and saxes sauntered in with The Pink Panther, and we all lapped it up.
Next was a gorgeous medley of songs from Oliver! – Oliver’s wistful ‘Where is Love?’ and Dodger’s bracing ‘Consider Yourself’; the back and forth of big brass, woodwind and flute voices in ‘I’d Do Anything’; the tragic self-knowledge of Nancy’s ‘As Long As He Needs Me’; and circling back to ‘Consider Yourself’ for the big finish. This was my favourite section so far.
But then we were marched into the Big Band sound, by way of Wallace and Gromit. I love this band!
The clarinets had their time to shine in Little Brown Jug, and an In the Mood that still swings, eighty-five years after it was first recorded.
Then we went way down South…. to Birmingham… to dance the night away to the electric bass. Cue Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll before we got In the Mood again, to close a very satisfying big band set.
Still the weather held, but Joelle was afraid to interrupt the concert in case the heavens opened again while we were all next door having a cuppa at the Crown Green Bowling Club, and we didn’t come back!
So we went to the romantic Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon, diverted briefly to Mexico for – The Children of Sanchez – and then paused for a while so the band could get their breath back.
As for the audience, while we weren’t going to get the perfect sunset in the poster, we did have everything else – picnics, catching up with friends (beginning new friendships, too), children playing safely, even a dog chasing a stick – and this great programme of live music – all free!
We even had Uptown Funk!
Then Joelle announced, “We’re going to Scotland now. We’ve got the weather for it!” We went by way of The Hebrides Suite, with a swinging walk out across the heather, a nostalgic, lulled coach ride home, and a perky piece punctuated by woodblock and triangle – motorway services?
The last piece in the suite felt truly martial, uplifting and expansive, played in the open air. I saw that a military march did more than keep soldiers in step with a Hup!234!
Its purpose was to carry ranks of mothers’ sons down the street and away to war, with heads up and chests out, and to displace fear and dread with pride and hope: to get communities waving and cheering as they watched their boys – and they were often still boys – march away to fight and die.
A march shows us one aspect of the extraordinary power of music. On this occasion, though, we could simply enjoy the sense of swinging kilts, fluttering banners and full hearts, in a piece about Scotland, composed by an American and played by a Yorkshire community brass band.
Next – Bare Necessities! – before we all joined in with Bohemian Rhapsody; huddled in our coats, squeaking, “Galileo! Galileo!”. Well, you have to, don’t you?!
Joelle paused to invite us all to their next Bands in the Park gig, in Stanningley Park on Sunday 27 August, when she guarantees better weather!
In the meantime, the wind was rising again, and I had to be somewhere else, but I’ve put 2pm on Sunday 27 August at Stanningley Park in my calendar. I want to hear this concert again. Especially as Joelle guarantees sun!
I walked away to a wacky medley which included Rock and Roll Part 2 (That’s ‘The Hey Song’ to most of us.) and YMCA, and I was halfway up the park when the band at last put down their instruments and took their bow, but the enthusiastic applause reached me loud and clear.
A blackbird started singing on a branch overhead and – I am not making this up – it started raining again!
Tutti! rehearse at the Bramley St Peter’s Church, Hough Lane, Bramley, Leeds LS13 3NF from 10.15am-11.45am on Saturdays during term time.
New wind, brass and percussion players of around Grade 4 standard are very welcome to come and join us. There is no formal audition; you just need to enjoy playing and making music with other people.” Find out more here.
For those who have “taken up an instrument and may only play a few notes” but would like the experience of playing in a group, there is also this.
Finally, Bramley Youth Brass will be welcoming in September. Contact details below.
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