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Group Blasts The Brass

Tampa Tribune photo by ROBERT BURKE

Fred Dinse, 74, plays tuba with a group of 5 from Sun City Center playing antique brass horns who call themselves Antique Brass.

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By ELAINE MARKOWITZ Tribune correspondent

Published: February 9, 2008

Updated: 02/07/2008 05:44 pm

SUN CITY CENTER - The deep notes of large brass horns resounded outside a Sun City Center home on a recent afternoon.

Gathered inside were four members of a quintet called Antique Brass. The knowing ear might have recognized the distinct sounds of the trumpet, tuba and French horn as they boomed "Oh My Darling, Clementine," a 19th century folk tune.

The lone trombone player, Jack Edison, was home ill that day.

The name of the group, said Bill Rudy, in whose family room the players were gathered, seemed to fit.

"We play antique music with antique-style horns," said Rudy, who plays the French horn.

"We are antiques," he said. "We're all in our 70s, except Susan."

Rudy's wife, Joanna, and the other players chuckled.

Susan Wilder, trumpet player and wife of Tracy Wilder, pastor of St. John the Divine Episcopal Church in Ruskin, is the baby of the group at 60.

Antique Brass is not a formal club but a loosely organized group of musicians who enjoy tooting their horns.

For some, music was a pastime throughout their lives rather than a means of earning a living. Now, all have dusted off or replaced their instruments, hoping to make joyful music and bring a little joy into the lives of others.

"We want to play for anyone in need," Rudy said, "especially for people in nursing homes."

The horns, they admitted, can be challenging instruments.

Tuba player Fred Dinse, a resident of Parrish who plays with numerous groups in Sun City Center, said the instrument, which is rich in tone, is large, cumbersome and expensive.

"I got a bargain with this one for $3,000," Dinse said. "Usually they cost about $6,000."

The horn is nickel plated, and Dinse plays in white gloves so as not to tarnish the instrument with the oil from his fingers.

Music is woven into the lives of Dinse, his wife, Joan, an accomplished pianist, and their four children, all of whom play brass or reed instruments.

"We bought our house in Parrish to have room for Joan's Steinway grand piano, a Hammond organ, the tuba, a viola, a cello, a bass, drums and a sousaphone," Dinse said, noting that the sousaphone is a coiled, wearable tuba.

A retired school superintendent from Rome, Pa., Dinse said a fourth-grade teacher started him playing the tuba.

"My mother would hear me coming down the street riding my bike and playing the sousaphone at the same time," he said.

He plays in five local bands and sings in his church choir.

The French horn is daunting as well. Rudy said his shiny, polished instrument is "cruel" and doesn't give you any leeway.

"It's hard to focus your tones on it," said Dinse of the French horn. "You have to be right on the money every time."

A retired elementary school teacher, counselor and lifelong musician, Rudy started with the cornet and trombone.

"The horn is a late acquisition for me," he said.

Rudy approached music through different avenues, including taking to the road with a dance band, running his own quartet and, in the '90s, opening a music store in an old farmhouse in the Cleveland area.

"We rented instruments," he said of the store, "but our big push was education."

Music lessons eventually necessitated 18 instructors.

While running the store, Rudy acquired a small French horn and taught young children to play. The instrument beckoned him as well and he stuck with it.

Jeff Landis and Susan Wilder are the trumpeters of the group.

Wilder has played many instruments since childhood.

"My primary instrument is the clarinet," she said. "I picked up the trumpet as a secondary instrument."

A native of Denver, she learned to play 13 instruments in her small elementary school and now plays for her church, Antique Brass and the South Shore Concert Band.

Wilder said she started a band at St. John's, "hoping to pull people out of retirement to play."

Landis picked up his dusty trumpet after a 50-year hiatus. Coming of age during the Depression in a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania, he grew up in a musical family.

"My father had an old cornet held together with chewing gum and solder," he said.

Two older siblings played the trumpet in roadhouses to earn a little money.

"I'm pretty much self-taught," said Landis, adding that his brothers did influence him.

A career in advertising led him to open a commercial art studio, keeping him too busy for his trumpet.

"I played in 1949 and not again until 1999," he said.

In Sun City Center, Landis spent one summer with a music coach and then began playing seriously again.

"He's an excellent trumpet player," Rudy said. "He has a lot of stamina and endurance."

Along with a love of music and brass instruments, the five musicians share the desire to bring good cheer into lonely corners.

"We are interested in playing at recovery places where we can entertain and interact with people," Rudy said. "It will lift their spirits."

For information on Antique Brass, call Rudy at (813) 633-3207.

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