Music on Mondays in March

The downtown library is offering a new concert series, “Music on Mondays in March,” which started tonight with the Quintessential Brass Repertoire, an outstanding group of professional musicians. One of the trumpeters is Zack Smith of the Dixie Power Trio (they often play locally), a couple of members are in U.S. military bands (always a good sign), and all of the players were top notch. They played a great mix of music, including light classical pieces, jazzy numbers, and a couple of Herb Alpert tunes (a big name from my 60’s-era youth). One of my favorites of the evening was “Mystery Medley”--instead of snippets of songs in succession, the piece featured the tunes layered on top of each other, including Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Pachelbel’s Canon, Puff the Magic Dragon, and the Burger King theme.

One small quibble: the library auditorium is a great venue for the performing arts, but they kept the glaring overhead fluorescent lights on throughout the performance. I’m not sure why the house lights never went down, even though the room is equipped with theatrical spotlights on a track in front of the stage which went unused. It would have made the evening much nicer to sit in a darkened room with the focus on the performers. Maybe next time. We’ll definitely try to get back for next week’s performance by “Driftwood Fire,” described as “Appalachian bluegrass and jazz.” Concerts start at 7 pm. Here’s the complete March schedule.