BOOMTOWN BRASS BAND SCARES UP ’20S SOUND
All aboard, if you dare. The historic Anacapa is transporting passengers into the past without ever leaving the station.
As part of its inaugural October Family Fun Series, the Galveston Railroad Museum has been hosting haunted tours of the 1929 Pullman railcar, which is open to the public for the first time since it was flooded during Hurricane Ike over a decade ago.
The new fall program, featuring after-hours events on the weekends, will conclude Saturday with a “spooktacular” Halloween celebration. The full museum will remain open, and as the final few groups of risk-takers experience the interior of what was once the luxurious private business car of editor John Palmer Gavit, the sprightly sounds of the Boomtown Brass Band will ring throughout the 5-acre property, further capturing the mood of the Roaring ’20s.
Clad in period attire, the members of Houston’s only traditional jazz group (tubist Thomas Helton, banjo player Morris Moon, cornetist George Chase, clarinetist DougWright and vocalist Danielle Reich) will perform an upbeat family-friendly set in the Garden of Steam Courtyard, where guests will have ample space to foxtrot the night away to the syncopated rhythms.
“The music is very fun, and that’s one of the reasons it’s become very popular,” said Helton, who founded the Boomtown Brass Band in 2015 after discovering the New Orleans-based ensemble Tuba Skinny on YouTube and being entranced by its effortlessly authentic sound and energy. “It’s not terribly cerebral. You don’t have to know a lot about music or jazz to enjoy it. It’s designed for dancing and parties, and that makes it very approachable to a larger demographic.”
Saturday’s lively program will include popular, century-old tunes like “St. James Infirmary Blues,” “Tain’t No Sin,” “Dead Man Blues” and perhaps most fittingly, “Jeepers Creepers,” a jazz standard that became considerably creepier when featured in a 2001 horror film by the same name.
“The flavor that they provide reminds me of the time when the station was built,” said David Robertson, who was named the museum’s new executive director in August. “I was looking for that big, loud sound that would fill up the courtyard, that F. Scott Fitzgerald feel, and I felt that they would lend themselves well to this event.”
Other available activities include hayrides on the open-air Harborside Express, a display in the depot featuring the winners of a children’s art contest in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, and a “Train or Treat” event in collaboration with Galveston ISD’s Family and Community Engagement Program spearheaded by Dr. Vivian Hernandez, explained the museum’s marketing director Jennifer Kelso.