Uptown String Band

I was a member of the Uptown String Band which was a Philadelphia Mummers Association string band that marched up Broad Street every New Year’s Day. I joined the band in 1962 and marched in my first parade January 1, 1963. The last parade was in 1968.

Our next door neighbor Joe DeLuca was an accordion player who got me to join the band with him. He only lasted a couple of years. I started out playing the clarinet but a year later I bought a tenor saxophone from one of the other guys and took lessons from one of the band members.

We marched in many parades throughout the year and especially on holidays like the 4^th of July and Memorial Day. We also gave concerts in bandstands and halls around the city. Occasionally we would march through a neighborhood in our regular clothes as a fundraising activity.

We always marched in the parades wearing the costume from the previous New Year’s Parade so each year we had different costumes. People loved it when a mummers string band came down the street on the 4^th of July. We would march in parades throughout the region and sometimes even farther away like Baltimore MD or up in New York.

There were 22 string bands and we were all in competition. Bands not only marched all the way from South Philly to downtown but also practiced carefully choreographed routines along the way and then performed for the judges at City Hall. Of course it was all on TV too.

The band had a clubhouse on Lehigh Avenue a few blocks from Germantown Avenue. It was a three story house. The first floor was a practice space for the entire band and also had a kitchen. The second floor was office space. There was a third floor where the teenagers hung out after band practice and sometimes smoked pot. We were supposed to be up their practicing music and routines.

Sadly the guy who sold me his saxophone and gave me lessons on using it was later killed in Vietnam after joining the Marines. He was three years older than me. He had a Polish name and everyone called him Stash.

Another thing about the Mummers and something I'm not proud to have been a part of but there were no black people and no women in any Mummers organization. Girls were not allowed to join the band. Different times.