FANFARE FOR A TRUMPETER: HOMER GILBER TO RETIRE AFTER 72 YEARS WITH MUNICIPAL BAND

Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs, Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean and Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer" introduced the world to talking pictures the year Homer Gilbert began playing cornet with the Cape Girardeau Municipal Band.

1927 was a good year.

Gilbert was 14 years old in 1927, something of a prodigy who was only 12 when he began playing with Peg Meyer's dance band. He began rehearsing with the municipal band that summer. The following year, conductor Thomas A. Danks invited him to join the band and then directed him to sit in the first chair.

Wednesday, Gilbert will be honored for his 72 years with the Cape Girardeau Municipal Band, an association which will end with the band's final concert of the season one week hence.

Mayor Albert Spradling III will offer him a proclamation declaring Wednesday "Homer Gilbert Day" in Cape Girardeau, and state Sen. Peter Kinder will present the Senate resolution he introduced honoring Gilbert.

Gilbert will be the band's special guest conductor Wednesday, leading his cronies in a march. And he'll be one of the featured players in "Dixieland Concerto."

To top off "Homer Gilbert Day," his grandson, John Ramey, will provide the evening's special entertainment. Ramey is a singer-songwriter working in Nashville.

Health reasons have led Gilbert to retire from the band. Now 85, he has pernicious anemia, a condition that saps his strength.

"I'm holding up fairly well but I knew I'd never make another year in the band," he said.

Gilbert played with many dance bands in which the musicians "faked," that is ad libbed their parts. "When you've got to read those little spots, that's a different story," he says.

Learning to play the trumpet at the age of 9 was his mother's idea. Besides joining the municipal band at a young age, he also played in a neighborhood band with brothers Van and Bruce Goodwin. Van was the father of Dr. Fred Goodwin, another longtime municipal band member who retired only three years ago.

Before the Capaha Park Bandshell was built, the municipal band practiced in the top floor of the Common Pleas Courthouse. Danks would keep us there until 11 or 11:30 at night," Gilbert said, "until you got it right."

Danks was his favorite conductor. "He not only was a master musician but knew how to handle people," he said.

The band performed at the gazebo in Courthouse Park. "We always had big crowds," Gilbert said.

At one time the municipal band did some marching. "But some of the fellows got so old we had to cut that out," Gilbert said.

In 1930 Gilbert was a sideman in a dance band in a fancy hotel in Savannah, Ga. It was the only year Gilbert missed playing in the municipal band since joining. He had taken the job down south to recover from pneumonia.

When the Depression hit, Gilbert returned to Cape Girardeau and went back to high school, but he kept playing music.

Homer Gilbert and His Rhythm Aces entertained for Civilian Conservation Corps dances during the 1930s.

He was a sideman with other groups that belonged to a who's who of area band leaders, including Herb Suedekum, Jack Kinder and Jack Staulcup. He played with Suedekum's band, an institution at the Purple Crackle nightclub for 25 years.

Gilbert's signature song at the Purple Crackle was "Sugar Blues." "Clyde McCoy never played it better," said Jerry Ford, a dance band leader and longtime member of the municipal band. "Sugar Blues" was McCoy's hit song.

Gilbert and his late wife, Margaret, had six children -- none of whom turned out to be musicians. Margaret died in 1977. But in the 1980s, he organized a band of young musicians who played for Knights of Columbus installations and similar events.

John Ramey, the grandson who will perform at the concert Wednesday, was one of those musicians. He learned to play the trumpet and to compose from his grandfather. It was Gilbert who first made him get up and sing in public. "Then I couldn't take the mike away from him," Gilbert said.

Gilbert gave trumpet lessons to a number of well-known musicians, including Jerry Heise, who now teaches at Purdue University. Kid Parks, a black youngster, asked Gilbert to teach him the trumpet back when segregation was still the rule. "I didn't care what color anybody was," Gilbert said.

He also is known to many people for his long association with Brown's Shoe Fit Co., where he has specialized in fitting orthopedic shoes. Gilbert still works at the shoe store part time.

In the municipal band, Gilbert did a lot of solo work but gave it up 25 years ago. "I decided to take second trumpet and let the younger guys fight that stuff," he said.

Ford, who was the band's lead trumpet from 1960 to 1994, calls Gilbert "remarkable."

"Even in his older years he still played a fine trumpet and kept his energy and his attitude. He always stayed young. Music and the trumpet kept him young."

Norval Randol, who took over the presidency of the band from Gilbert 12 years ago, calls him "Mr. Muny Band."

Back when the band had uniforms, Gilbert would make sure they were all in order every year and would even sweep out the band shell rehearsal room those times when water creeped inside, Randol said.

"Over the years he has done everything ... The Muny Band has been fortunate to have him."

Though Gilbert's association with the municipal band is ending, his long allegiance to the organization isn't. He says he'll continue going to municipal band concerts for as long as he can.

"There's a musician's joke," he explained. "Old musicians never die. They just fake away."