By Kurt Vincent

My dad, Harry Vincent was an Arbor Hill kid. At a young age he took a liking to music and that joy never left him. Of his many “old Albany” stories one of his favorites was his single mother paying 25 cents a week to buy a used cornet for him. Through his school years at Albany Public Schools he remembered being able to play with a different band in every night of the week. From Italian concert bands in the South End to full orchestras to small jazz combos. By age 16 he had formed his own dance band and played weekly at Albany’s YMCA.

By age 22 he had married and had his first child. It didn’t take long to realize becoming a full-time musician in Albany was not financially possible. For the next 45 years he played “club dates,” countless wedding receptions, school dances, commercial gigs and seldom turned down a job. When I came along in 1956, music, musicians and all the business of being a band leader was pretty much standard kitchen table conversation.

In the late 60’s he had segued his job in public information into the first full-time instructor of instrumental music at Hudson Valley Community College. It had only taken 38 or so years, but he finally could say he was making a living as a musician. Over those many years he gave private lessons, formed a German Om-pah band and was the leader of his local community band. In 1990 he was diagnosed with a respiratory disease. While he could play for a brief period, he could not endure. In the end he joined the drum section of our community band and with my mom on bass drum and him playing glockenspiel. By then I had become leader of the group and tried to share the many lessons he taught me in being a musician, a band leader and a good person. In 1995 he succumbed to his illness and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t remember him, his music and his life.