This city now has a namesake pop band to do it proud — Denver & the Mile High Orchestra.
In that respect, it’s equal to Chicago and Boston, with their namesake rock groups, or the Miami Sound Machine, Detroit Wheels, Memphis Horns, Atlanta Rhythm Section or L.A. Guns. It’s something any self-respecting American city seems to want — along with a baseball team and a political convention.
Except . . . Denver & the Mile High Orchestra doesn’t actually have a thing to do with Denver, the city, that is.
Rather, it has a lot to do with Denver Bierman, a 31-year-old Nashville resident and musician. His group has been called a “Christian big band” — definitely an unusual musical niche — and, perhaps a bit more mainstream if old-fashioned, a “horn-driven pop band.” It started while he was still a music student at Nashville’s Belmont College and has been in existence for 10 years, touring on the Christian circuit and releasing small-label CDs.
But it is enjoying a spike in popularity as a result of finishing in the top three on last year’s “The Next Great American Band” reality series. Bierman sings, plays trumpets, writes and arranges the songs of the 11-piece group.
He would like nothing more than to make it a Denver band in every sense of the word. He was born in small-town Plymouth, Ind., to a family that found Denver an appealing first name for a boy. Growing up, Bierman visited the Front Range often. An uncle was a high-school principal in Colorado Springs.
“Listen, if I could play a number of shows out there on a yearly basis, I’d move in a heartbeat,” he says, preparing to eat a baked chicken dinner outside his tour bus, near the bandstand, at the Warren County Fair in Lebanon, Ohio, just northwest of Cincinnati. His orchestra is the opening-night headliner at the small-town fest.
“I’d love to be known as the band from Denver,” he says. “It is such an incredible city. When I was growing up, I truly thought they named the Broncos after me. I told the other kids I had my own football team.”
While it has welcomed John Denver (real name Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.), who lived in Aspen and wrote moony paeans to the Rockies, Denver hasn’t had a successful pop group named after it. Some have tried, like the Denver Gentlemen. And there have been other entertainers named “Denver,” an unusual but not unique first name. Denver Darling, according to All Music Guide, was a New York City radio cowboy who recorded popular patriotic songs during World War II.
In his senior year at Belmont, Bierman put together a large horn band to play campus and community gigs in Nashville. It was meant as a musical outlet primarily, although his faith has always been important to him. And the new band didn’t have a name when he was invited to play a showcase at the city’s prestigious Ryman Auditorium.
“They said you have to have one to put on the fliers,” he recalls. “So a buddy named Josh and I went back to our dorm room and thought up crummy names like Groove Band and Happy Band.
“Then Josh said to me, ‘Denver, you’re the leader of the band, you write and arrange music, your name’s unique, let’s come up with something based around you. What about Denver & the Mile High Orchestra?’
“It was a play on my name and the city,” Bierman says. “I said, ‘That’s the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard in my entire life.’ But it was the best we could come up with. We got a standing ovation at the show and have been using it ever since.”
Busily booked
While churches have been the band’s mainstay for many years, the television success has opened it to newer and more varied venues. August gigs include the Indiana State Fair and his home town’s annual Blueberry Festival; fall brings shows at a series of events and conference centers in Oregon, Nevada and California. Since the television show, he has been booked by the top-flight Creative Artists Agency.
In performance, Denver & the Mile High Orchestra is definitely both a horn-driven pop band and a Christian big band. The trim, youthful, neatly groomed Bierman gets the show off to a jolting start with swinging versions of nostalgic horn-infused hits like Ides of March’s “Vehicle,” Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September”and Billy Joel’s “Tell Her About It.”
His voice has a genial, boy- band clarity to it, free of grit or rock ‘n’ roll angst. The other members take turns soloing on trumpet; alto, soprano and tenor saxophone; and trombone, sometimes even doing a little onstage showboating. All the band members but two have been with Bierman for at least five years; all share a religious commitment.
As the concert goes on, the Christian aspect becomes increasingly pronounced. It’s in the original songs, which have an uplifting, optimistic lilt and breezy, sweet arrangements and lyrical religious references.
And it is in Bierman’s comments, which move from lighthearted stage patter to an extended monologue about his need to find and accept God. The concert peaks with an appeal for the audience of some 300 to pray and, if ready, step forward to waiting ministers to accept Jesus.
For those in attendance, including many churchgoing families with children, the band was a treat. “I think the combination of the old swing style with contemporary material is excellent,” says Joe Veal of Lebanon, after the show. “He’s a great, energetic performer and he has a true love for the Lord.”
But the concert became so religious an outsider might ask if it violates church-state separation, since the fair is a county-sponsored event. Such a question, posed to the fair’s administration, met with this e-mail reply:
“This concert was organized, arranged, and paid for by the Lebanon Ministerial Association. The Warren County Fair did not provide funds for this performance. The concert was located on the infield of the racetrack, and individuals had the choice to attend this concert. The concert was well attended by those who chose to attend.”
Amped up for sponsors
A Denver & the Mile Orchestra show isn’t always like this, Bierman says before the concert. The Lebanon show was more overtly proselytizing because churches sponsored his appearance. “So it’s a night I get to be a little bit more vocal about my faith,” he says. Sometimes, he adds, he’s specifically asked not to speak at a show.
“And that’s OK,” he says. “Every time we play it’s my prayer and desire our music will remind people there’s a God that loves them. My faith in God is such I know he’s going to touch the hearts of people, whether we use a bunch of human words or not.”
Bierman and his wife, Amy, have two children, a 3-year- old boy named Boston and a 9-month-old girl named London. “So yeah, there’s a thematic thing running through my family names,” he says. “But certain names just do not fit. Like Tallahassee or Sacramento, usually ones with lots of syllables. We’re not going to be using those names.”
Don’t look for a Sacramento & the Mile High Orchestra in a generation or so. It’s now or never for Denver.
