Our residents enjoy giving to the community.
Five Points merchant helps construction workers beat the heat
No need to pay these pipers

The residents of Forest Pines Retirement Community collect school supplies for the children at Carolina Children’s Home. Katherine Knox; Verna Hodges; Betty Byrd; Gloria Coleman, activity director; Freda Meatous; Marian Moore; and Caroline Hendricks make a presentation to Alison White, community relations coordinator. Forest Pines is located at 1720 Devonshire Drive in Columbia. By Rachel Haynie

Music man Joe Lanese had the home court advantage last week when band director Jim Mills handed the baton over to him at a Wildewood Downs concert.

Dennis Hiltner of The Gourmet Shop takes drinks to the construction workers as they get the job done despite soaring temperatures. Lanese, 91, and his wife Laura are residents of the northeast Columbia community. That evening, the dining hall at Wildewood Downs’ clubhouse became a summer bandstand. Toward the end of the concert, Lanese was invited to guest conduct the Summer Band for Sousa’s Thunder March.

The Summer Band’s core musicians come from the Columbia Community Concert Band (CCCB). The members of the Wild Irish Band, who took Dublin by storm last March, also has many members from the CCCB, and some members also play in a specialty German band.

Joe Lanese conducts the Summer Band at Wildwood Downs “In the summer, though, many people are on vacation or would like to take a break. But since a good many of the musicians would like to continue playing, we created the Summer Band by inviting musicians from Camden and Sumter to join in,” said Paul Pickens, who books and coordinates gigs for all four bands.

The Summer Band’s final concert for the summer season is scheduled for 6:30 pm, Tuesday, August 9, at The Atria on Trenholm Road.

So far this summer, the Summer Band has won applause in Ellis Hall at First Baptist Church, and at Forest Pines and Waterford, both retirement homes. The band has also entertained seniors at Deepwood Estates and the Presbyterian Home in Lexington, Hulon Greene in West Columbia, and Lowman Home at White Rock and Wildewood Downs, now home to Lanese.

The former Cleveland school official and his wife relocated to Columbia in 2000 to be near their daughters Barbara and Carol, both of whom are career nurses like their mother had been.

When Lanese left Cleveland, he had been directing music there for 68 years, beginning as a high school music teacher. Over the years he worked with marching bands, was promoted several times, and eventually to supervisor of all music in all the schools.

“That included instrumental and vocal music, and all the teachers for 12 high schools, 27 junior high schools, and 135 elementary schools. Cleveland is very invested in music, especially school music,” said Lanese, who calls himself a string man.

“I played the viola and the violin. Italians, you know, they know opera,” explained Lanese. “But I am interested primarily in instrumental music.”

He passed the passion along to all three of his children. Both daughters played piano and flute. His son, Bob, has long been a jazz musician in Hamburg, Germany.

After retiring from the Cleveland public school system, Lanese became a local music store’s educational advocate for 10 years. His forté was a good fit with the Summer Band’s repertoire.

Jim Mills leads the 40–or–so musicians (although there are at least 70 on the list willing to play) in patriotic and Irish medleys, a selection of Sinatra standards and Broadway show tunes, and a gospel medley.

A crowd favorite is called Instant Concert because it is arranged with countless fragments of recognizable secular and religious numbers. It’s the audience’s job to count how many songs they think they hear. The listener closest to the correct answer wins a prize.

Pickens, who has been the front man for the collected bands for many years, explained that the Summer Band concerts are the musicians’ gifts to the Midlands’ seniors. “We aren’t paid to play. In fact, we pay to play.”

The annual dues musicians chip in are used to purchase music. This summer their uniforms are golf shirts embroidered with Summer Band, which Pickens was able to secure. The khaki pants are from the musicians’ own wardrobes.

The Columbia Community Concert Band will resume its playing schedule early this fall.