There are jazz bands. There are classical orchestras. Then there is the Seattle-based Pontiac Bay Symphony. While they may not play rock and roll, some of their repertoire includes songs more recognizable than the Beatles. Each Pontiac Bay performance embraces a theme. One concert focused on movie theme songs, including “Jaws,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Jurassic Park,” “Star Wars,” and “2001 A Space Odyssey” with its trademark heart-stopping timpani “Boom-boom Boom-boom.” Another celebrated the Western movie and TV show genre, and that song list included “Rawhide,” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” a Clint Eastwood cult-classic. The eclectic roster including at least one player from Highline.

Sunday, March 14, they will perform “The Pontiac Bay Old-Time Radio Show,” which will attempt to duplicate the old radio shows of the 1930’s and ‘40s with a Cole Porter and Duke Ellington big band sound.
Professional actor and base baritone opera vocalist Cliff Watson will be the announcer. Ballard resident and old time radio maven, Larry Albert, will perform three roles. He is best known as Harry Nile, Dr. Watson, and others in the Jim French Productions of Imagination Theater heard nationwide, and in Seattle on AM 880 KIXI.

The scores will be interspersed with sketch dramas involving sound effects contraptions like the glass “crash box” that simulates windows and lamps braking, the door and knob box which often precedes the line, “This is the police. Open up.”

“Then there is the ‘wood block’ you strike with a mallet, the sound of junior kicking the bill collector in the shins,” said Sheila Espinoza, Pontiac Bay’s director and founder.

Espinoza is an award-winning Seattle composer whose mission was to establish a band with a mentoring theme. All ages participate and the more experienced show the ropes to the newbies.

“We’ve done this (theme) twice before and it was really popular and sold out,” she said.

“If you put blinders on, and your headphones on, it will be just like listening to the radio in the 1940’s. That’s the idea,” said West Seattle resident Jeffrey Taylor, who plays the tuba in the symphony. He also performs with the Black Diamond Brass, Northwest Symphony, Highline Community Symphonic Band.

The Chicago-born 58 year-old, who said he appreciates the opportunity to mentor youngsters, was raised on music in the house.

“Dad ran the Bill Russell Orchestra, and Mom was a classical pianist who studied at the Chicago Music Academy. She died last year. When she was 14 she played a Greek Piano concerto with the Chicago Youth Symphony. One of her last performances last year was that same concerto with a major jazz band in Florida. Mom started teaching me piano at age 5. Mike (Michael) Russell was my teacher here. He was with the Seattle Symphony for 32 years. I won’t say I ever gave up music. I put it aside for 30 years.”

Clint Kelly, a Burien resident for 18 years, plays electric and acoustic base for Pontiac Bay, and looks forward to the old time radio show production.

“We didn’t have television when I was a kid so we listened to radio shows,” said Kelly, 60. My younger son, Jamey, who is 17, likes to listen to this kind of stuff, too.”

Kelly got involved with the symphony when he attended a recording session with Hummie Mann, a film composer who was teaching in Seattle. Kelly retired from Union pacific Railroad, and said his instrument “seems to be getting heavier as years go by.”

Kelly also plays in the Highline Christian Church band in Burien. He prefers to play barefoot at Pontiac Bay’s rehearsal space at Magnuson Park. He explained, “It’s more comfortable practicing without shoes. At the performance, however, concert dress is required.”

Pontiac Bay Symphony is a non-profit open to musicians age 13 and up. It performs three times a year at Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) McEachern Auditorium, 2700 24th Avenue East, Seattle.