Jubilee Brass again visited Sarnia, Ontario on August 16th,2009 to participate in this year’s “GOSPEL BY THE BAY”. This is a musical feast presented by Sarcor Rebar and Gospel by the Bay Music Productions. This annual event attracts thousands of gospel music lovers.

This year the featured guest was world famous gospel singer John Starnes. Other participating groups were the Tribute quartet, one of North America’s premier gospel quartets, The Galloways from Nashville, Tennessee, Simple Song, an award winning family group of seven, Mercy, a lady’s trio with a unique brand of contemporary gospel music and the Kingsway quartet. a London, Ontario based group. The event took place at Dow People Place, Centennial Park.
The promoters of this event billed Jubilee Brass as presenting ‘big band gospel music’ and the band didn’t disappoint.

When the band took the stage the temperature was 30 degrees c causing no little degree of physical stress. Where were the water bottles?
Fortunately, though the concert was held in the open air, the stage and audience area was covered. With a slight breeze off the water it was tolerable.

The opening number was a Soderstrom classic, the March ‘Army of God’. This was followed by the invocation brought by the Executive officer Major Wilson Noble.

Retired officer Major Frank Dixon chaired the program and the band moved into a processional ‘Be Glorified’ penned by William Gordon of Vancouver.

The song setting by Leonard Ballantine, “’Mid all the traffic’ was a nice change of pace.

Principal Cornetist Major Gary Venables stilled the crowd with a most sensitive arrangement of William Himes’ ‘I’d rather have Jesus’. This is a startling number that opens with the soloist entirely alone for the first seven bars. This number is extremely well received and is a blessing and challenge to the listener.

The band turned to the vocal number ‘Redeemed’ , a lilting arrangement by Aubrey L. Butler of the words by Fanny J. Crosby. This number was conducted by bandsman George Holmes who demands much and gets much response from the band in terms of style and dynamics and sensitivity to the lyrics.

The band next presented another Gordon number entitled ‘Gospel Jubilee’ incorporating such tunes as ‘Standing on the promises’, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’, and ‘I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever’.

A change of pace in sound, tonal quality and expression came next when our resident Piper, Band Sergeant Jack Bernard played the ever popular ‘Amazing grace’ with band accompaniment. This tune is heard all too frequently in these days as the bodies of our fallen soldiers are returned to their homeland from Afghanistan in their flag draped coffins reminding us of the price for peace in a war torn world. The pipers are there on the airport tarmac to salute and console. We who play music for the glory of God know what that Grace really is.

The next num,ber on the program was Richard Holz’s pleasant cornet trio played by Karl Jolly, Merv Leach and Fred Boycott. ‘What a Friend’.

Two Hymn Tune arrangements followed; ‘ Shine, Jesus Shine’ by Graham Kendrick, arr. Richard Phillips, and ‘Praise my Soul’ by John Goss, arr.Michael Babb.

The concluding number, in this hour long program, chosen by the bandmaster was ‘To God be the Glory’ by Dean Goffin. What a fitting conclusion. “To God be the Glory, great things He hath done. So loved He the world that He gave us his Son”