It had been 20 years since John Leibach had picked up his tenor saxophone.
Leibach, a gastroenterologist with the Digestive Disease Association, didn't know if he would ever play again after his community jazz band broke up in the 1980s.
In the fall of 2008, one of Leibach's patients , a fellow musician named Frank Young, called him about an opening in the Gainesville Community Jazz Band.
What seemed like an endless silence for Leibach's tenor saxophone quickly turned into a scramble to relearn the instrument he had played since he was in sixth grade.
"Can we practice once?" Leibach said to Young. "I don't remember having to struggle to see the music."
Two days later, Leibach and the Gainesville Community Jazz Band performed at The Village, a retirement community in northwest Gainesville.
The story of John Leibach and Frank Young is one of many that can be learned from the short history of the Gainesville Community Jazz Band, which began in the summer of 2007.
More than 20 years had passed since Gainesville had a community jazz band until Marco Thomas, a music teacher at Joseph Williams Elementary School, gathered a few band directors from local schools to play.
"I really wanted to play jazz," Thomas said. "So we just kind of started building it."
Beginning with a handful of musicians and fliers posted in local music stores, Thomas' jazz band grew to 17 members with widely different backgrounds and professions.
Friday night, the band performed for the "Free Fridays" concert series at the Bo Diddley Community Plaza in downtown Gainesville.
As the sun set, and the band began playing, people spread blankets and unpacked folding chairs. During the performance, children of all ages danced to the sounds of Count Basie and Glenn Miller.
"It's been a lot of fun," said David Ballard, director of events for the Division for Cultural Affairs. "People are dancing and having a wonderful time together."
The sounds of downtown Gainesville occasionally made their way into the score. Ambulance sirens, or solos, as Thomas called them, crescendoed and decrescendoed during the band's performance of hits from the 1930s and the 1940s.
Leibach and Young both played in the original community jazz band in 1972 and have remained friends.
"There was always an understanding that if anything came along, to let him know because he loves to play," Young said of Leibach. "And by golly, he came out and did it."
Leibach, lead tenor saxophone, tapped his left foot and counted silently to himself between musical phrases as Young swayed from side to side with the rest of the trumpet line.
Both musicians said they will continue to play with the community jazz band and have no plans of stopping anytime soon.
"We're playing for the love of playing," Young said. "If we get paid, OK. If we don't, it doesn't bother me."
