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The Dance Band

By Neal Murphy

If a musician plays his instrument and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make music?  My answer to this perplexing question is a definite “yes”, and I am living proof.

As a college freshman in 1955, I was selected by the band director to play in the College Dance Band.  This was a selected group of musicians attending Stephen F. Austin State College.  I felt honored to be selected to play in this fine group.

I had played the clarinet in middle school, was switched to the tenor saxophone in the high school band, and later played the baritone saxophone in the college dance band.

This orchestra specialized in playing at area high schools, primarily at prom dances and graduation parties.  We were on the road most every week end during the months of April and May.  It was quite an experience for me.

We played a lot of Glen Miller music favorites and other “golden oldies” that were written to dance to.  As a nineteen year old male, it was a great way to meet teen aged females at the school dances.  As it turned out, our dance band played at my future wife’s high school, Hemphill, in 1955, but we did not meet until a year or so later.

My musical career ended after my saxophone fell off the top of the bus enroute home from a “gig”.  My horn did not survive and I could not afford to purchase another one.  And to think that I might have gone on to play in Lawrence Welk’s band.  Several of the guys in the orchestra when on to become band directors at area high schools

It seems that the era of the dance band, or orchestra, is over, and has been for some time.  That is a shame, as today’s high school students don’t know what they are missing.  Glen Miller’s music was written for another time when couples danced slowly cheek to cheek.  If you have been to a high school dance in recent years, you know that you will need to wear ear muffs to help deaden the ear drum bursting noise.  And, the modern kids have a different version of dancing “cheek to cheek”.  Maybe it is just as well, I can’t play a single note on a saxophone anyway.  My parents, mother nature and father time, have seen to that.