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While waiting to perform with the Unity Street Band at the 2018 Providence Honk! Festival, Vanessa Ryder heard a small group of musicians playing “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé. Although she had never seen the sheet music before, Ryder knew the basic melody and decided to join in and do her best “to keep up.” More and more players from other groups caught on, and before Ryder knew it, the beat to “Crazy in Love” was echoing throughout the park.

“Without any rehearsal, just a nod to the person next to you. Someone would just call out ‘saxophones,’ and everybody would play their part in the song, and they’d back out, and someone else would jump back in,” Ryder said. “Those are the fun experiences that come out of a street band.”

Ryder is a saxophonist in the Unity Street Band (USB), which was founded in 2017 by trombonist Melissa Gardiner and piccoloist Donna Vallese. The group is made up of Syracuse locals who come together and perform music throughout the streets of central New York.

“(Gardiner) knew a bunch of people who wanted to be able to play instruments but really didn’t have an outlet to do so,” Vallese said. “I knew the structure of the street band culture and what needed to be put in place to fit into that Honk band scene. And so that is kind of how it started.”

USB follows the structure of a Honk! Festival-style band, which encourages individuality among its members. Rather than have a uniform, their purple theme serves as the symbol of the group, with each member wearing the color in their own way during performances.

Similarly, the band’s music offers more room for improvisation than concert bands. Instead of performing the traditional marching band arrangements with brass and percussion instruments, many Honk! bands go a step further by augmenting instruments or vocalists.

Most Honk! music bands exist for a specific purpose or as an advocacy group. Some perform primarily at activist events, but they are typically autonomous entities not affiliated with another organization. Vallese said Honk! bands can help bring joy to the places they perform and focus on improving society in some way and bringing light to injustices in the world through music.

In this same vein, Honk! bands have performed at prisons, environmental demonstrations and educational rallies, as well as basic community events. Unity Street Band most recently performed at the Westcott Street Cultural Fair on Oct. 1.

Since 2006, Honk! band culture has been a worldwide phenomenon, Vallese said. There are Honk! bands in Brazil, Australia and France, all of whom travel to the US to perform in Honk! festivals. The festivals bring together a strong community of people who are all committed to making a difference in the world through music.

The whole premise of a street band is that they are portable, so performers can put music in spaces where people never thought music would be.

“We can take a walk through the park, or we can walk down the street and pop into a bar and play a tune and have a drink and continue walking down the street if we want,” Vallese said. “You’re able to kind of surprise people and just show up places because everything’s portable.”

This improvisational and relaxed style of music and performance provides relief from the strict rehearsal environments professional musicians experience, Ryder said. She plays in the Baldwinsville Community Band and the Skaneateles Community Band, where performers are always pushing themselves to get every note correct. In the Unity Street Band, skill and experience are not required as the band focuses on giving anyone the opportunity to perform.

“We’re not all professional musicians. A lot of us are from different walks of life and careers,” Ryder said. “When we come together, we’re all like a bunch of good friends hanging out and playing together.”

Ryder said USB is a special group because of the true joy everyone has when playing together. As a nonprofit organization, the band has no motivation for their music to sound good. This helps remove a lot of the pressure that can come with playing in a professional band, she said.

“We’re not trying to make a record or do constant shows all over the place like most bands are trying to do to make money,” Ryder said. “That’s what makes it work well for us is that we have a nice level of a stress-free zone here. It really does make a big difference.”

When Stevi Ladd’s husband Chuck, a clarinet and saxophone player, first joined the Unity Street Band, she initially watched rehearsals from the side. After a while, some members of the percussion section did not show up, and Stevi picked up the tambourine, which she said looked “ridiculous” among the other musicians.

“I was informed that if I just keep the beat right, that’s my job,” Stevi said. “It’s a very important thing. I love every minute of it. I enjoy working with the syncopations of the other percussionist people.”

Vallese said the rehearsal style of USB makes it easier for new members to adjust to the group and put their own spin on classic marching band tunes. While the band plays a lot from reading sheet music, there are also many songs they have simply learned by ear.

“When you have a song like ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ or some other easy New Orleans style tune, it’s easy to pick up and learn the melody, but then it gives people an opportunity to learn to improv over it,” Vallese said.

Over the last six years, USB has been putting its own creative spin on classic songs to help shine a light on the strength in CNY’s music scene. Whether they are marching through the streets of Westcott or hosting other street bands at their festival Salt City Honk!, the unique sound of USB is working to make a difference in the world.

“Our mission is to put the unity back in community through the joy of music,” Vallese said.

Published on November 9, 2023 at 1:00 am