Harry James Orchestra brought back memories of a different time
By LINNEA DICKERSON for the News Herald

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It was a different time, unlike any time before or since. Our nation was recovering from the great depression and was at war from 1939-1945. This nation was unified and supportive of "our boys" as never before or again. Women took up the slack in the workforce depleted by the number of men in the military overseas fighting. Yes, it was a different time and the stuff nostalgia clings to so lovingly and desperately.

The music was simple, and the message clear. One had not to guess if it was a sad love song, happy love song, or the blues. And Harry James was at the head of the pack. He had a career that started in a circus band as a youth, advanced to winning a competition at the age of fifteen, followed by a life of playing his style until 1982 when his lung cancer took over. He died the next year. James' trumpet style was not easily replicated, but Fred Radke, his first chair trumpet for seven years, was close.

Radke was asked by the Harry James estate to do a memorial tour for the estate and Columbia Records. He has directed the orchestra since.

I had the good fortune to hear Radke and the Harry James Orchestra Sunday, at Dodson Auditorium. One only had to shut their eyes as the band played and Radke's horn hit those high, impossible notes and held them for an insurmountable time.

It was spellbinding! The crowded auditorium was silent. Attentive, caught in a moment of time so near and dear to so many. Bursting into gales of "yeas" and applause as each familiar piece was played.

During his performance, Radke had every man and woman veteran stand up and be recognized thanking them profusely for their service to our country. And sharing stories of war, one of which was told him as he taught a class in Seattle, WA, where he retired after 39 years of teaching.

Radke asked if anyone remembered where they were the first time they ever heard "I'll Always Love You." He told us one man in his class raised his hand and said he had been a pilot in WWII and his aircraft went down in Italy. An Italian farmer and his son picked up the pilot, hid his parachute and took him to the root cellar basement in their home. He stayed there, scared, for three days living on water, bread and soups. On that third day, the farmer brought him upstairs for dinner and told him that this was the night the resistance would try to get him back to his people. He took an old radio down, turned its scratchy dial to BBC, and the soldier heard Harry James play that song. The soldier was 18, and saddened by the remembrances of all those left behind he loved and missed; his parents, his siblings, his friends, other family, everything just washed over him in that moment.

That is what Harry James did. And that is what Radke did Sunday for a large audience. It was also when I knew that these rare performances enjoyed by those actually around in that era was coming to an end. The songs are still taught in band classes, but for the style. The nostalgia of that day, and those times will soon live in history only, as they are so interwoven with the days of WWII. Yes, it was a different time and the stuff nostalgia clings to so lovingly and desperately.