Best Brass

Let other U.S. cities pride themselves on their opera houses and symphony orchestras -- Long Beach, Calif, has the nation's finest municipal brass band. And the most expensive. Topping the entire musical budget of many a city thrice its size, Long Beach (pop. 225,000) spends $86,210 a year on its municipal band. In the sparkling California summer, when the band's 33 members move out of the Municipal Auditorium and strike up Hawaiian Medley or Gems from the Bohemian Girl in the seaside bandstand, Long Beachers walk thither with springy steps, feeling that their money has been well spent. Last week an audience of 5,000 swarmed on the sand to hear the opening concert of the summer season.

For their $86,210, Long Beachers get a repertory of good old-fashioned music. They also get the skilled elbow-waving of a veteran bandmaster named B. (for Benjamin) A. (for Albert) Rolfe, whose red face, wheezing voice and massive (230 Ib.) figure have become as indigenous to the Long Island landscape as the oil wells atop Signal Hill. A man who started as an infant-prodigy cornetist and went on to conduct radio's Lucky Strike dance orchestra, Rolfe took over the Long Beach Band last year when its founder, an oldtime Sousa (cornet) soloist named Herbert Lincoln Clarke, decided to retire.

Bandmaster Rolfe has endeared himself to Long Beach's music lovers by adding a judicious dash of polyrhythmic oomph to the band's traditional rhythmic oompah. A man of unblushing temperament, who conducts with his back to the band, he frankly describes his abilities as "brilliant." "I have always been one of those spectacular musicians," says he. Band- master Rolfe soothes his audiences with such items as Overture to the Viking, scenes from Babes in Toyland, selections from Porgy and Bess. His theory: "Give 'em what they want."

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