- [Jim] It's a marching band, it's a concert band.

And because it's open to everyone, it's become much more than that.

- I found a new family and a great community to be with.

- [Jim] Bringing together pets and people, that and more has been steady work for the APA now for 100 years.

Dwight Davis, best known for Tennis's Davis Cup, led a life of public service in Washington, in Manila.

But we are still reaping the benefits of what he did for his hometown of St. Louis.

- He was able to do so much work, and it seems to us today like so much of it is behind the scenes.

- [Jim] And we remember the life and the music of the late Jeanne Trevor, who earned the title The First Lady of St. Louis Jazz.

It's all next on Living St. Louis.

(upbeat music) I'm Jim Kirchherr, and this first story brought to mind my high school marching band days.

Eight steps to five yards in the football field, learning how a band turns a corner while marching in a parade.

Well I haven't played the French horn for years, actually decades, but you know, if I wanted to, I'd know exactly where to go.

Brooke Butler tells us about a band that accepts everybody, especially those who might be marching to a different drummer.

(upbeat band music) - [Brooke] Several years ago, I went to my first Grand Pride Parade in downtown St. Louis.

And it can be a lot to take in.

But being the proud band geek that I am at heart, the thing that stuck out to me the most was the marching band.

Yes, it was their brightly coordinated colors, peppy music, but above all of that, I couldn't help but notice these were grown adults in a marching band.

However, that's not the only thing that makes this band unique, and it's not a coincidence that you only see the marching in Pride parades.

- I wanted something where I felt comfortable being both gay and a musician.

And people would refer to me as the gay sax player, not Gary.

- [Brooke] Gary Reynolds is the founder and artistic director of Band Together, a musical organization open to players of all abilities and identities.

Like a lot of people who participated in high school or college bands, Gary was looking for a new outlet to keep playing, but didn't always feel accepted in community groups.

So in 1997, he put an ad in the Gay News Telegraph looking for musicians to play in the upcoming Pride Parade.

- I had about 10 people show up, which was fantastic, 'cause I didn't know if anyone would show up.

The downside was, of those 10 people, about six or seven of them played saxophone.

So we had to be very creative with how we were gonna get all the parts covered.

And we had no plan past that.

Once we did that, we had no idea what we're gonna do.

So we thought, well, what do we do?

Do we get together again?

Are we done?

- [Brooke] The small group decided to reconvene and prep some other music to play at a holiday dinner for PFLAG, or Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

- Which actually just seemed kinda like the perfect fitting, because all of us as musicians, our first audience is usually our parents.

(orchestral music) - [Brooke] Flash forward 26 years later, Band Together now has upwards of 200 members.

Not all members play for each concert or event, but it's safe to say the saxophones are no longer the dominant instrument.

- We're always very humble and we still are.

We always were kinda like, who's gonna wanna hear us?

We're just kinda rusty, so we never wanted to charge anyone anything.

We were just like, come hear us play, it'll just make us feel good if you just come listen to us.

And now we'll get anywhere from four to 800 people per concert.

And we still don't charge any admission.

We just put out a tuba case and said, hey, we've been free all these years.

If you'd like for us to keep it free, on your way out, throw in the tuba case what it was worth for you to be here tonight, and just help us keep going.

- Band Together is different, one, for the size of our community band.

It's actually quite large for any community band.

The other thing that makes it unique actually is the approach that nobody should ever be excluded from attending a concert, thus the free concerts, or being a part of the band.

- [Brooke] So that means no auditioning, no testing of skill levels.

If you can't play certain parts of the song, you just sit back.

If you don't have an instrument, they'll help you find one.

That being said, their sound doesn't reflect the fact that some players might be a little out of practice.

The band has marched in Washington DC, played at the Sydney Opera House, and Gary has high hopes that the band will soon play the national anthem at a Cardinals or Blues game.

- In the other groups I played with, I felt it would matter to them whether or not I was a gay musician.

This group doesn't care.

I was invited by a friend who played in another community group with me.

And that person and I got married eight years ago.

I kidded myself for a long time that I joined the band out of a tribute to two of my brothers who passed away from AIDS.

And that was my story for a long time.

And then, no, no, (chuckle) it wasn't the case.

So I found a new family and a great community to be with.

- I think you'll probably hear a lot of people say this, but Banded, it's family.

I can trace pretty much any meaningful relationship I have in my adult life right now to the decision to join the band.

I made friends, it's how I ultimately ended up meeting my wife.

Lifelong friendships and relationships, just because I play the trombone.

It worked out.

- Culture has changed a lot in 26 years.

And what is readily acceptable now certainly was not when we first started.

People would join and say, I'm interested, but I don't want my name put in the program.

Or I'll march in the Pride Parade, but I wanna be put in the middle so I don't get caught on camera.

So I think initially people joined because it was a safe place.

And then I think over time, people joined because, hey, I came to one of your concerts and it really sounded good, and I wanna be a part of that.

And for it to be more of a music organization, we certainly remember our roots and why we started it, but what it's evolved into is beyond anything we ever expected.

It's our chosen family.

(upbeat band music) (audience cheering) - Our next story, by Ruth Ezell, is about an organization celebrating its centennial.

That's 100 in human years.

- [Ruth] In September of 2022, dogs by the score and the humans who loved them gathered for the Canine Carnival in Tilles Park.

(happy music) The annual pooch party, thrown by the Animal Protective Association of Missouri, was put on pause when the pandemic started, but now it's back.

- I want to thank our team members and our volunteers who worked so hard to make this event possible.

- That's the CEO of the Animal Protective Association, Sarah Javier.

She's thrilled the Canine Carnival returned as the APA marks 100 years of service.

- We have three main pillars that our mission is built on: Adoption, wellness, and education.

And education is so important.

Not only are we teaching people of all ages how to care for and interact with their pets, but ultimately those educational programs are creating a more compassionate and kind community, which we all benefit from.

- [Ruth] The APA was founded in 1922 by Ella Megginson of Webster Groves.

She was frustrated the city government did not have a department dedicated to investigating cases of animal abuse.

The association's first donation was used to buy a truck.

25 years later, it moved to its current location on Hanley Road.

Over the decades, the APA has expanded services in response to evolving community needs.

- And what we learned during the pandemic is that a lot of people were experiencing eviction, or foreclosure, or facing a number of housing challenges.

So we were able to respond to the community by expanding our Safe Care program to include crisis housing.

So now if a person is facing eviction or foreclosure, they may have to temporarily be without housing, and in some cases, they may feel as though they need to give up their pet, but now we make it possible for them to get temporary care for their pet, secure stable housing, and then be reunited so the pet does not have to lose its family.

We started doing trial fostering to adopt, where we would let people take a pet home for a short period of time to see how that pet would fit into their family.

And what we learned is that it worked so well and the adoption rates were just so good, and we didn't have people bringing pets back, that we decided to keep it as a permanent part of our operations, because it was so effective.

- [Ruth] The APA centennial is being observed with a series of events throughout the year.

(dog barking) At Bar K, a popular spot for dogs and dog parents in South St. Louis, the APA took advantage of a captive audience back in March to recruit participants for its fundraiser, Walk of the Century.

The goal is to get 1000 people to walk 100 miles with their pet, over time, and raise $100 for the association.

Meanwhile, the day to day work continues nonstop on Hanley Road.

Each year, thousands of pets are adopted, spayed or neutered, or reunited with their families through the association.

Leslie Kennedy and her son Liam came looking for another cat to add to their family, and found one they decided would fit right in.

Mom says all their pets are adopted.

- We've got orange kitty, black kitty, gray kitty.

Well, another orange kitty now.

(chuckle) But yeah, we decided, we look at their website every now and then, and whenever their numbers are up, we like to come in and check out and see what they have, if it would be a good fit.

And today it said they had 83 cats.

And with their anniversary, we decided today's the day.

- I feel like I hit the jackpot of all jobs.

And while it isn't always easy, it is really amazing.

And on a tough day, you just pick up a little guy like Jackson, get a few cuddles, and it reminds you why you're doing it.

- [Ruth] It's almost like magic.

(gentle upbeat music) - The Davis Cup Finals were taking place this month in Spain, which brought to mind the story of St. Louis and Dwight Davis, who gave the trophy to the tournament that bears his name.

The Tennis Center here in Forest Park is named for him, but there's so much more to his life story.

We first told it years ago in our Walk of Fame special, about how he was the Secretary of War under President Coolidge, was Governor General of the Philippines under President Hoover.

But this time, we really wanted to focus on what came before; Not just the tennis, that is important, but what he did for his hometown before he left for Washington.

Dwight Davis spent much of his life in public service to his community and his country, and he didn't have to do any of it.

He really didn't have to do anything.

He'd been born into one of St. Louis's wealthiest families.

The Davis family money had come from his grandfather's dry goods business, which had grown into this big headquarters building in the heart of downtown St. Louis.

In 1893, when Dwight was 14, his father built this mansion in what was the new elite neighborhood of the city, the private places of the Central West End.

Dwight and his brothers were growing up with the best of everything: Private schools, clubs, and summers in seaside resorts, where everybody was playing a new English game called lawn tennis.

- And that's where he learned the game.

And all of the young men who were playing were of a class that had the leisure to play these games.

- [Jim] It was when he went off to Harvard that Davis became one of the top tennis players in the country, winning two National Doubles titles with his partner Holcomb Ward.

Their success was due in part to their development of a new kind of powerful spinning serve.

- It hadn't been all that long ago that they'd been practically serving underhanded.

So these young Americans were turning the serve into a very strong weapon.

And it's hard to believe that that was the first time it had been seen that way, when we look at how tennis players usually serve these days.

- [Jim] But when Dwight Davis was at the top of his game, tennis was declining in popularity.

He and others thought it needed some kind of boost in public interest, and one idea was an international competition with a trophy, like America's Cup in sailing.

So Davis paid $750 out of his own pocket for the creation of this big silver bowl, the International Lawn Tennis Challenge trophy, what his friends dubbed Dwight's Pot, and what we call the Davis Cup.

In 1900, the all Harvard American team, including Dwight Davis, challenged and defeated Great Britain in the very first tournament.

Dwight Davis would see in his own lifetime the Davis Cup competition achieve what he had hoped, an event with international participation and popular interest.

And he would forever be known as the Davis Cup Davis, no matter what else he did.

- I think it was a little roofle at some points, I think, about how all anybody really knew was the cup.

- After Harvard, Dwight Davis came back to St. Louis and went to law school, but he never really became a lawyer, and frankly, he really didn't need a job.

But there were a lot of things a rich, well-connected young man could do.

There were boards and charities and politics and committees.

And this was a very exciting time in St. Louis.

St. Louis was getting ready for the World's Fair, and it was working hard to clean up its image.

An anti-corruption campaign was being led by the circuit attorney Joseph Folk, and government and business leaders were being indicted for bribery and corruption.

There was also a push to do something about the terrible conditions in the city's slums.

A lot of this reform was spearheaded by women, social workers and reformers backed by well-to-do society ladies like Dwight Davis' mother.

She was involved in the group that was pushing to have playgrounds built in the overcrowded city neighborhoods, and to build and operate public bathhouses.

Dwight got involved, and he began to make a real difference, not so much as an innovator or a visionary, but as the man who could make things happen.

- In some ways, Dwight Davis ends up behaving, I think, as much like the wives of businessman as he does a businessman himself.

Again, he has the wealth to give his time to the public, and that's very important.

He also, though, has the connections to get things done.

He knows how to play the game, which is something that the women who set up the Vacation Playground Association didn't know how to do.

- [Jim] The real spark plug in the reform movement in St. Louis was Charlotte Rumbold, who had investigated overcrowding and unhealthy conditions in city slums and campaigned for playgrounds, bathhouses, and summer youth programs.

She found in Davis an important ally in the fight for change.

They both believed that outdoor recreation would make healthier and better citizens.

When Davis became the city's parks commissioner in 1911 with Rumbold as secretary, they built ball fields and public tennis courts and set up citywide baseball and soccer leagues.

No longer were parks places to be gazed at and strolled through.

Dwight Davis took out the keep off the grass signs.

He said if it came down to a choice between people and grass, he'd sacrifice the grass.

(happy piano music) - [Kim] He manages to allow those things to happen, provides funding for them, and it's a push that otherwise they wouldn't have gotten from the people at the top.

(happy piano music) - [Jim] It was under Dwight Davis' guidance that the rebuilding of Forest Park after the World's Fair was completed.

It had the landscaped in pretty places, but Davis also filled much of the rest of the park with his public ball fields, tennis courts, and a golf course.

Although some, but not all racial barriers, were still in place, there was much greater emphasis on public access and use, and there was much greater economic and social diversity now in the city's parks.

By the time he left the job in 1915, this man who had a private tennis court behind his mansion on a gated street had helped democratize St. Louis's parks.

- That was one of the things that people said about him.

Having attended a series of private schools, he comes out a nice guy.

And I think that that's one of the reasons why he was able to do so much work.

And it seems to us today like so much of it is behind the scenes, when again, he could have stood in the way of so many projects, regardless of who they belonged to.

And he didn't, regardless of who started them.

- [Jim] The public service continued after that in Washington and in Manila, where he combined tennis with diplomacy, welcoming Filipino players to his private tennis court.

- [Nancy] Now, I don't think you always found that in American politicians of that era.

- It was consistent with his whole life.

In Manila, at Harvard, back home in St. Louis, Dwight Davis was a believer that good things can come from people playing together, from competition between neighbors and neighborhoods, cities and countries.

(crowd cheering) He died in 1945, a few months after the war ended, at the age of 66.

He started his life as one of the richest kids in town, and he might have ended up with nothing more than a big, impressive tomb overlooking St. Louis, a monument to the wealth and position that he was born into.

Instead, his grave is marked by a much simpler stone in Arlington National Cemetery.

Finally, Jeanne Trevor first made a name for herself here back in the days of Gaslight Square, and she would become known as the First Lady of St. Louis Jazz.

And in this city, that's a title that really means something.

Ms. Trevor passed away in October at the age of 84, and we take a look at her career and her life with a story from our archives by Ruth Ezell.

- Good evening, friends.

- [Ruth] To her adoring fans, Jeanne Trevor is the First Lady of St. Louis Jazz.

♪ Jill, when you smile at me ♪ I hear a melody ♪ It haunted me right from the start ♪ But for the record, this pixie of a singer with a rich, versatile voice doesn't think of herself as a jazz artist.

- I had studied the classics; I'd wanted to be an opera singer.

I realized at the time there weren't that many scholarships like they have now, or you'd have to go right to Europe.

And I was lucky to get down the corner from Harlem at the time.

(laugh) - [Ruth] Harlem is where Trevor was born and raised.

She was exposed to a variety of music and got to hear many of the country's foremost jazz and pop performers live at Harlem's venerable Apollo Theater.

- It was a family affair.

You might see Duke Ellington as a youngster and a gushy girl.

I always loved to see Billy Eckstine.

- Oh yeah.

- No, everybody swooned.

- He was handsome.

- Gosh, you aren't kidding.

He was really handsome.

And you'd see people like Nat Cole.

♪ Don't tell me the lights are shining ♪ ♪ Anyplace but there - [Ruth] Did you know right away that you wanted to be like them, to be on stage like them?

- Well, I knew that even before then, 'cause my father was a performer.

And that's how I got the bug or whatever.

The DNA, I don't know what you call it.

- [Ruth] He was a musician?

- He was a singer and a guitarist from his hometown, folks' hometown, Richmond, Virginia.

And that's how they moved up to New York.

He got signed up with an agency.

- [Ruth] After high school graduation, Trevor headed to the west coast with relatives.

She enrolled in Los Angeles City College as a drama major and worked as a secretary to put herself through school.

Trevor got her first professional singing engagements in LA and San Francisco, and she acted with a Black repertory ensemble.

Trevor also got a small movie role in the 1959 western, "The Oregon Trail."

Then, in the the early 1960s, a musician who was a friend of Trevor's cousin suggested they relocate to St. Louis.

- He told us about a place they had started called Gaslight Square.

So that's where that comes in.

And they were very amenable to talented new faces.

- I first saw Jeanne in 1962 in Gaslight Square.

I didn't know her at the time, but I saw her a number of times performing, because she was one of these singers to go to.

- [Ruth] Al Becker is host of a jazz show on KDHX Radio, and a close friend of Jeanne Trevor.

- I know of no one else in jazz that really sounds like her.

♪ The man that won you I think she just acquired it over the years.

If you listen to some of her early recordings, and she made a number of 45s during the Gaslight Square era, Gaslight Records, Norman Records.

- [Ruth] Records that include "Somebody Knockin'."

♪ Whoa, my God ♪ Whoa Mary ♪ Somebody's knockin' at the door ♪ Besides Gaslight Square, longtime followers of Trevor remember her days in the St. Louis Jazz Quartet.

It was formed in 1969 by Young Audiences Incorporated.

Trevor, who has continued to work with the organization since then, performed on college campuses with the quartet and traveled the world to introduce the music form to younger generations.

- We went to Australia, Alaska, Senegal, Africa, Torino, Italy.

- [Ruth] And they performed with symphony orchestras, the St. Louis Symphony among them.

♪ All the sad young men ♪ Sitting in the bars Another Trevor performance with a string section backup was on March 18th, 2007.

She was the featured soloist with the Webster University Symphony Orchestra.

- The foreign numbers she did were absolutely incredible.

I've never heard her sing with a symphony before.

Her voice is not only powerful, she can hold a note amazingly long, which she did Sunday night, and a couple people in the audience just gasped.

- Trevor has used her acting talents on stages across St. Louis for many years.

Here, she played the role of Old Sal in the Muny's 2006 production of "Oliver."

Jeanne Trevor even worked here at the Continental Life Building, where radio station KADI played all jazz all the time.

She spun platters for a couple of years after the demise of Gaslight Square.

She's also done her share of work making commercials.

Trevor's ability to adapt to the times has allowed her to consistently earn a full-time living as a performer.

♪ I've got the world on a string ♪ Trevor's professionalism and upbeat personality has earned her the respect and affection of the local entertainment community.

Case in point, what happened to her at the 2007 St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival.

A severe afternoon thunderstorm temporarily shut down the festival, and as a result, Trevor's scheduled performance was canceled.

But fellow singer Nancy Kranzberg invited Trevor on stage during her set to sing a few tunes.

That's how it is when you're jazz royalty, and Trevor's loving every minute of it.

- [Jeanne] It's been fun, fun, fun, I tell you.

(audience applauds) - And that's Living St. Louis.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jim Kirchherr, and we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Living St. Louis is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation, the Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan Charitable Trust, and by the members of Nine PBS.

(upbeat jazz music)