Here is a trombone concert program from last summer, when Matt McGarrell conducted the Gazebones and many other trombonists at the 34th annual “Mostly for Fun Trombone Concert” at the Elm Street Congregational Church in Bucksport, Maine. Many years ago Matt took on this annual fundraising concert as a pet project.
Matt also made a project of the concert’s genial founder, the late Don Blodgett. Don was a respected educator and long time official of the Federal government’s education department in D.C. In fact, a couple of years ago Matt traveled to Don Blodgett’s home in Wisconsin to interview him for a biographical article.
– David Schwartz
What do you get when you put two people together who hale from different backgrounds but love to play their trombones? For the past 25 years, you get the “Mostly for Fun Trombone Concert” held every second Saturday night in August at the old Elm Street Congregational Church in coastal Bucksport, Maine.
In 1985, Don Blodgett, who grew up in Bucksport and moved back to the area in retirement, invited a few of his fellow trombonists from the Washington, DC area to play with him at his childhood church in Bucksport in what was to become one of the highlights of the Maine summer music season. The public was invited and donations received at the door were earmarked for the maintenance of the church’s 150+ year-old E & GG Hook pipe organ.
Always on the lookout for ways to put musicians together, Don got wind (pardon the pun) of a group of trombone players who were camping in the Camden area and doing small group performances including a moon-rise service atop Camden’s Mt. Battie. That was exactly the kind of player that appealed to Don and so, in 1995, Don invited the Gazebones to join the annual concert in Bucksport. The rest is history.
For the past 25 years, the Gazebones have been a much-anticipated and much-appreciated part of the trombone experience in Bucksport. One year, Matt was heard to say, “The trombone concert in Bucksport for me is an essential annual event.” Thank goodness for that!
The owner and publisher of Bucksport’s local paper The Enterprise once described the concert as …one of the finest collection of trombonists ever assembled on this planet…with an emphasis on fun, flair and a little flash, not fuddy duddy musical meticulousness. As a result, the musicians produce sounds in the Elm Street Congregational Church sanctuary that have to be experienced to be fully appreciated. The annual concerts delight accomplished musicians and those of us that aren’t quite sure which end of the instrument it is emanating from.
Although Matt and Don took different professional paths, they shared a common bond in education. In retirement, Don raised a considerable amount of money for music scholarships that enabled young Maine music students to get private music lessons or attend a summer music camp. Thus, in addition to the camaraderie the day-long gathering of trombone players offered, there was always an educational element. The musicians gathered at the church on Saturday morning. Many local trombone players, retired professionals, music educators, and music students from the University of Maine joined the Gazebones to rehearse the group numbers followed by afternoon sessions to work on small group numbers. Imagine the thrill for a young musician playing his or her trombone among those experienced players and enjoying their jokes and banter at the same time!
The concert program was always varied with something for everyone to enjoy from classical to jazz, to sacred, to popular pieces. For many years, Don insisted (to some groans) that the last piece be “When the Saints Go Marching In,” with the players circulating up and down the church aisles, a real crowd pleaser.
In recent years, Matt, who had written and arranged a lot of the music for the concerts, and Silas Yates, a Castine resident with a music background about as varied as you will find, have been the concert organizers, exposing audience members to an even greater range of trombone music. Imagine the sound of “Panis Angelicus” coming from 25 or more trombone players Even so, one year the group also played the theme from the Mickey Mouse Show!
As a member of the audience almost every year, I never left a concert without being completely amazed and moved by the beauty of the sound produced by so many trombones. One audience member from Dublin, Ireland, said after a concert one year, “I never would have thought that a bunch of trombone players would sound like that.” That was probably most people’s reaction, unless you were a trombone player!
Don is no longer with us, but I can say on behalf of his family, as well as the Elm Street Congregational Church, its members, and the local community, that he was ever grateful to Matt and the Gazebones for their friendship over the years and for their devotion to the “Mostly for Fun Trombone Concert.”
Martha Blodgett Pedrick
May 8, 2020, on the occasion of Matt McGarrell’s retirement