May 31, 2006
Saviors of Song
Of all the old printed music that Kim Venaas and his orchestras have rescued from the dustbin of history, a faded clarinet arrangement is one of his favorites.
On the front is “Down by the Old Mill Stream.” On the back, a long-ago clarinet player scrawled a giant note, presumably to another musician: “YOUR FLY IS OPEN.”
Venaas hoots with laughter. The next minute he pounces on the 9-foot grand piano in his Palo Alto home to pound out the World War II tune “He’s Got A WAVE in His Hair (And A WAAC on His Hands),” vocals and all.
One expects he’ll next take on the 1940s “God Bless America” arrangement — the part marked “Kate Smith solo.”
In the hands of Venaas and the Peninsula Pops and Black Tie Jazz orchestras he conducts, this music couldn’t be less antique or more alive.
Venaas’s groups are on a mission to save printed music dating back as far as 80, 90, 100 years. They’ve been spurred by cash-strapped school music libraries shrinking, elderly collectors passing away, and the general passage of time.
This all means the loss of original music that is the bread and butter of the Palo Alto orchestras: the big band music played by Black Tie Jazz, and the Gershwin, Berlin, Porter and other popular tunes on the Pops programs.
“It’s just tragic…much of that music cannot be replaced at any cost,” said Venaas’s wife, Alicia Wilmunder, who is also a Pops cellist and its general manager.
So the orchestras have been gathering old music from donations, estates, wherever they can. Many of the treasures are orchestra arrangements, while others are piano sheet music songs with peppy illustrated covers.
Venaas estimates he has 170,000 arrangements for big band and jazz (including some duplicates) stored at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. As for the popular songs favored by the Pops, the group has some 5,000 in 25 file cabinets and 113 running feet of steel shelving in a storage unit near the Palo Alto Airport.
While the music is carefully archived, it’s not meant to languish in storage. Venaas is also giving the old tunes their time in the sun — or stage lights — again.
Some of this music gets new life on June 4, when the Peninsula Pops play their “Hollywood or Bust!” show at Spangenberg Theatre in Palo Alto. Besides offering up music from such classic and modern movies as “Singin’ In the Rain,” “Laura” and “Titanic,” the orchestra will also dip into the “rescued” collection.