Oscar Dahl and the city band
Published 10:16 am Tuesday, May 27, 2008
By Ed Shannon, staff writer
With the arrival of June six to seven decades ago, people in the Albert Lea area could again start to enjoy the Wednesday evening concerts by the city band directed by a local grocer named Oscar Dahl.
Oscar grew up on the north side where his father, Iver, had a grocery store. He graduated from Albert Lea High School with the class of 1927. His early interest in music was enhanced with membership in the Albert Lea High School Band directed by L.J. &8220;Cap&8221; Emmons.
He graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield in 1931, then returned to Albert Lea to join his father in the operations of Dahl&8217;s Grocery store in the part of the city known as New Denmark.
Oscar married Florence Deeds in November 1934. Also, about this time he and a group of local part-time and hobbyist musicians held several meetings in the basement of the North Side Bank to see if a city band could be organized. Prior to this time Albert Lea had enjoyed the music of several concert bands which were sponsored by several organizations or operated as amateur music groups.
What soon evolved from these meetings was a small concert band sponsored by the north side&8217;s businessmen. The first appearance by this new band was at an outdoor concert in nearby Lincoln Park (now designated as New Denmark Park). Dahl became the director of this musical group.
However, the goal of this group of musicians was to become the city&8217; official band. In 1936 as petition was presented to the Albert Lea City Council asking for the creation of a tax-supported municipal band. This proposal was placed on the ballot in that fall&8217;s election and approved by the voters.
The Albert Lea Municipal Band, with Dahl as the director, became a reality in 1937. By June 1938 the band members had new uniforms, an expanding music library, and a full schedule of summer concerts in both Fountain Lake and Edgewater Parks. That same year this band represented Leo Carey Post 56 of the American Legion at the state convention in Hibbing.
This band also participated in several parades as a marching unit and were involved with exchange concerts with town bands from Austin, Owatonna and Northwood,
Iowa. Yearly appearances by this band were also made at the Freeborn County Fair.
Members of this band held weekly rehearsals in the winter and spring months. It&8217;s unlikely they were paid for the rehearsal sessions; the usual policy in that era was for the cities to pay their bandsmen for playing in the public concerts.
Albert Lea&8217;s official band continued with the schedules of summer concerts during the years of World War II and the Korean War. Also, during the two decades of providing musical entertainment for area residents there were some continuing changes in membership.
By the 1950s there were several factors which were starting to create competition for the city-sponsored bands around the nation. One was based on a gradual change in the types of music preferred by the younger generation of listeners. Another really significant trend came with the advent of television. As a result, the attendance at the traditional concerts began to decline.
The last year for the Albert Lea Municipal Band came in 1958. When the city council set the budget for 1959, the band&8217;s appropriation was eliminated. The city&8217;s sheet music was donated to the Chatfield Brass Band Music Lending Library, located in Chatfield, a community southeast of Rochester.
However, Dahl was involved in several other activities during his life in Albert Lea. He and his wife were charter members of Grace Lutheran Church where he directed the choir, served on the church council, and taught Sunday School. He also managed Lakewood Cemetery for 40 years, retiring in 1995.
This north side grocer helped to organize Security State Bank in the 1940s and served on the board of directors for many years.
Oscar and his father Iver, who died in 1944, had a neighborhood grocery store on Bridge Avenue for 75 years. This ended in 1977 when Oscar closed the store and sold the property to Security State Bank for the expansion project which created what&8217;s now Security Bank Minnesota.
The former director of the city band continued his musical interests. He played the trombone in the Chatfield Brass Band and later in the Albert Lea Community Band. Another part of his musical activities was based on tuning pianos.
Florence Dahl died in 1998 and her husband, Oscar, died in January 2001.