When Wayne Macuga of North Huntingdon put together a 17-piece band in 1999, he didn't have any trouble finding musicians who wanted to play.
He had retired the year before from directing senior and junior high school bands in the Penn Hills School District and, in those 30 years of teaching and playing, he made a lot of friends in the business.
He also recruited musicians from his family, who for more than 35 years have been playing together as the Wayne Macuga Combo.
That includes his wife, Nadine, who is the choral director for the Norwin School District, and plays keyboard, and her father, Ray Leavy, 93, who plays alto and tenor saxophone, and the clarinet. Their son, Justin, 29, who joined the combo in more recent years, is the lead vocalist, and Wayne Macuga plays the trumpet.
The other combo members are Gene Hudak of Cheswick on electric bass, and drummer Dennis "Zip" Cochenour of Yukon.
The big band practices every Thursday at the Hartford Heights Firehall in North Huntingdon, mostly just for fun.
"Not too many people hire a 17-piece band," Wayne Macuga said. "We just all enjoy playing together."
The big band books only a few gigs a year, but the combo plays at least once a month (the third Wednesday) at the Youngwood Firehall where weekly music attracts the senior crowd and ballroom dancers.
"I really enjoy working with three generations," Nadine Macuga said. "It's so much fun."
The family's musical heritage started with Leavy, who grew up in Baldwin and still lives there.
"I used to practice on the front porch with my brothers," he said. "We had no TV, and that's when music was really appreciated."
He played his first gig in 1931 with the Freddie Castle Band at a New Year's Eve party in Pittsburgh's North Side. He later played in a U.S. Army band, and through his career as a pharmaceutical salesman, he always played music on the side, including in a Shriners band.
Wayne Macuga met Nadine when they were both teaching in Penn Hills.
"I had been playing since I was in high school and we had our own little band for weddings and private parties," he said. "My father-in-law had his own band, too. Then there were some disagreements in the band I was in, and some members of my father-in-law's band passed away, so we ended up playing in a family band."
Justin Macuga, a graduate of Norwin High School, took trumpet and piano lessons from his parents, and grew up listening to his grandfather play. He majored in music at the University of California, Los Angeles, performed for a time on the West Coast and recently returned home after spending a year teaching in Korea.
Big Band sound
The Big Band sound that they play was made popular by band legends such as Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and the Dorsey Brothers, and crooners like Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
"I love this music," Justin Macuga said. "It's rich, it's lyrical, and the music of today just doesn't compare."
For one thing, Wayne Macuga noted, the sound relies on acoustic instruments, not on electronics or synthesized music.
"You have the complexity of the instruments having to do what they are supposed to do, in order to make the band sound good," he said. "And then the beat of the music, and all the lyrical songs from that era, and all those melodious sounds ... there's nothing like it. It's more invigorating and exciting than any other style, and it is the epitome of that era's music."
It's also very danceable.
"This is the third time that we've been dancing since Saturday," said Earl Neiderhiser of Indiana.
He and his wife, Linda, drive to Youngwood every Wednesday and look for dances wherever else they can find them.
"There aren't that many," Linda Neiderhiser said. "If you want to dance, you really have to seek them out."
The couple took ballroom dancing lessons several years ago to surprise their daughter at her wedding reception. They enjoyed it so much that they joined the Indiana Ballroom Dance Club, which has 85 member couples and a waiting list. Club presidents Don and Becky Becker, also of Indiana, make the weekly dances in Youngwood.
"The older people have been doing these dances all their lives, but we had to learn it," Becky Becker said.
On one recent evening, dancers stepped lively to "Don't Fence Me In" and "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?" Then couples glided to "Moonlight Serenade" and Nadine Macuga's smooth vocals in "Someone to Watch Over Me."
Her husband and father took center stage with trumpet and sax in "Twilight Time," then the tempo picked up with group dancing for "The Electric Slide" and "Never on Sunday."
The dances are more than an outing for couples. Half the people, Nadine Macuga said, aren't married and attend as a way to meet other senior citizens. Those without steady partners float around, pairing up with the people who signed up on their dance cards.
"I love seeing all the elderly people coming out and having fun," Cochenour said.
Hudak agreed. "Just look at the smiles on everyone's faces," he said. "They are really enjoying one another and enjoying the music. Then they turn around and applaud us, just like the Lawrence Welk Band."
