100-year-old tuba player names music as secret to longevity
Age may stop a person from doing many things, but if you are Henry Nelson, it doesn’t stop you from playing the tuba.
Nor has turning 100 this past October stopped him from arranging music and performing with the brass quintet that he founded 10 years ago.
Nelson took the stage earlier this month with the Asbury Brass Quintet, performing holiday arrangements with the four other members of the ensemble. The Quintet grew out of another group Nelson was a part of, the Senior Class Band. Its first performance was for Nelson’s 90th birthday.
Tuba wasn’t always Nelson’s instrument of choice. He majored in flute at Michigan State. From flute and piccolo, he grew into the saxophone and spent a lot of time playing the string bass. But then World War II was starting and his director, Leonard Falcone − who was recognized in his lifetime as the world’s greatest euphonium virtuoso − asked him to make a change.
“They just needed more sousaphones and I could play some from high school,” Nelson said. “Mr. Falcone said you’re a bass player so I played it then and I played it more or less often over the years. There was an interval probably 30 or 40 years where I didn’t play it. Then I started playing it again and just picked it up.”
Before retiring, Nelson was a band director and teacher in Bath, Perry and Haslett. He was once elected teacher of the year. He was also the director for the Lansing VFW 701 Band, a band which won several national championships, traveled the country and eventually morphed into today’s Lansing Concert Band.
It was there that another Lansing Concert Band director and an arts writer for the Lansing State Journal Ken Glickman met Nelson 30 years ago, 20 years after Nelson had passed on the baton for the group.
“Henry took the band out to Los Angeles, out to New York, for VFW conventions,” Glickman said. “So he and I really had a lot to talk about. He was teaching at Haslett High School, he was a band director there. He had already been in Owosso. He was just beloved in the high school band community because he was not only a tough teacher, but he was very musically sophisticated and needed to have his musicians, whether they be adults or kids perform up to his standards.”
Glickman said he would arrange music and marching bands, serve as judges for contests and festivals all around the state and step in as a guest conductor for various groups. And, of course, he continues to perform as he has throughout his entire life.
“He plays piccolo, he plays flute, he plays tuba and he plays saxophone,” Glickman said. “That’s a remarkable array of instruments for one person to play. And he is 100 years old and is still playing and is still arranging music. His arthritis is now finally starting to get the best of him and so he is playing more tuba than piccolo, but he’s a very good piccolo player.”
Nelson said he had been playing his tuba with the Senior Class Band when he decided to form the Asbury Brass Quintet. Bruce McCrea, a trombone player, had met Nelson in 2012 with the Senior Class Band and they decided to branch out together.
“We’ve been going strong for 10 years,” said McCrea. “We play at different retirement homes. We played at churches as evening programs and are part of the Sunday service at times. We play for matinee musicale like we did (on Dec. 7). It’s fun to just read the music, but also to perform and give other people the opportunity to hear us play.”
McCrea points out that 100 years ago, there was no such thing as a brass quintet, which makes it a more recent development in terms of musical history − and means there is a limited amount of brass quintet arrangements for the combination of trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba.
“One of the things we’ve benefitted from is that Henry has done lots of arrangements for our brass quintet,” McCrea said. “That’s one of the things that has been fun is to just have him arrange pieces for us.”
Nelson said the group is proud of the fact that they play a little bit of everything.
“We play classical music, naturally,” Nelson said. “Then we just play a lot of pop music and old chestnuts. You play for the public, you have to play some things that they like. You just can’t play classical music."
Nelson describes music as the world’s greatest hobby. He points out that there are a lot of things older people have to give up as they age. Most older people, he points out, can’t go out and shoot baskets, but they can still play music. The younger members in his quintet are all men in their 70s who can still play with flair.
“You’re doing it sitting down,” Nelson said. “Your skills wane and ebb like anything, but people play for fun and you don’t have to be a great player to play for fun.”
Nelson waxes eloquent when talking about the health benefits of music for people as they age. He points out that it keeps a person mentally alert − you have to read and transpose music, be physically active carrying around a case and instrument and be socially involved as most people perform with a group.
Glickman said Nelson walks his talk when it comes to music being a healthy pastime.
“He is the epitome of music gives you a better life and music allows you to live a long life,” Glickman said. “I’ve never known him to be ill. I’m sure he has been, but I’ve never seen it. He is still doing everything he did before, and he will not stop. Music is his lifeblood.”
Glickman describes a recent time when Nelson stepped in as a guest conductor for the Lansing Concert Band. Nelson was a bit slow in climbing the podium and he was conducting a march that no one had ever heard of before.
“He started to conduct and all of a sudden, we knew what he wanted from that music,” Glickman said. “He was expressing his understanding of the music and the band immediately connected with him. He was amazing. We were all so impressed with him.”
His 100th birthday party was held in Williamston. Glickman was there and he said the place was packed with his old students. He described it as inspiring to hear his students, themselves now also retired, tell stories about him being their band director.
“Everyone loves Henry Nelson, but he was no pushover,” Glickman said. “He was a very tough high school band director. He demanded from these kids and they performed for him.”
Glickman said Nelson spent the party telling stories and jokes as well as performing a few numbers with the Asbury Brass Quintet.
“To see a man who still walks, who still has a sense of humor and who still has a twinkle in his eye and he’s 100?” Glickman said. “To see a man who can tell jokes and still be a charmer? You just don’t see that from a 100-year-old.”
When asked what he’d like to do in the second century of his life, Nelson’s answer was short.
“Just keep on playing.”
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: 100-year-old tuba player names music as secret to longevity
