MAURER DANCE BAND, PERL
Danny, Sammy, Ed M., Ray, Boots, Perl, Art, Ed S.
Homebase: Bremerton, WA
Stats: ca 1924-ca 1960s
Misc Notes: There are no known recordings by this artist
Perl Maurer ~ Violin (1906-2000)
Danny Hebb ~ Saxophone
Sammy Fein ~ Clarinet
Ed Maurer ~ Trumpet
Ray Hall ~ Accordian
Boots Berg ~ Drums
Art Smith ~ Piano
Ed Siminston ~ Tuba
"Perl started the first UNION HIGH SCHOOL (Bremerton) band about 1924. Soon after, he established a dance band in the Charleston (now West Bremerton) American Legion Hall. He was so successful that the Legion tried to run the dances but were not as successful. Perl then built a hall up on Arsenal Way and became the best known hall in the area. The first hall was destroyed after a few years and he built a second one. I think Perl may have continued to have dances and his own dance band into the '60s. In later years, perhaps to about 2000, Perl played drums and had a small combo in Belfair."
Russ Warren, Bremerton, December 2007 correspondence with pnwbands.com website, (courtesy of webmaster Sam Carlson)
PERL MAURER: Dance hall owner dead at age 93
By Steve Corda, Sun Staff — Jan 4th, 2000
"What better life could you have?" Perl Maurer once asked. "I could tell you stories."
The life of musician and dance hall owner Perl Maurer ended Monday morning. But the stories of the man who played gigs for nearly 80 years and whose hall brought top performers to Kitsap County will probably live on forever. Maurer, age 93, died Monday at Harrison Hospital of congestive heart failure.
"Dad's kind of a legend," said Gary Maurer, Perl's son. "He's had two dance halls in Kitsap County and he'd lived here since the teens.Anybody that's been in Bremerton any time at all knows my dad and probably has some pretty nice things to say about him," added Perl's daughter, Darlene Pendley.
Maurer and Pendley said their father was born Dec. 2, 1906, to Park and Lilley Maurer. Though Perl Maurer was born in Kansas, he moved to Bremerton at the age of four or five and called the area home for more than 80 years after that. In Bremerton, Maurer began taking violin lessons before he'd reached double digits in age. By his count, he was practicing five hours a day. And that practice soon paid off.
"He began playing dance (hall) jobs when he was 14 and made more money than my grandfather did in the shipyard," Pendley said. He kept up the musical career and worked at the shipyard. In 1928, he married Ida Mae, who would be his wife until her death two years ago at the age of 87. The couple opened Perl's Pavilion in 1934 at what is now Arsenal Way and Loxie Eagans Boulevard.
An era was born. Perl's would operate, with a brief pause for a fire and rebuild, until 1971. During that time, the dance hall was almost-always packed and attracted top-notch entertainers. Duke Ellington, country singer Jim Reeves and even Paul Revere and the Raiders took the stage at Perl's, a stage Maurer played himself.
Perl's Pavilion became such a meeting place that, by Maurer's estimate, at least 350 of the couples that met there were later married. That number includes former Bremerton mayor Glenn Jarstad and his wife, June. "There was just no place like Perl's," Jarstad once said. "There was a little of everything, from waltzes to square dancing."
The Maurers sold the Pavilion in 1971 and retired to Tahuya. Maurer continued playing music professionally until last year. Though Pendley said "music was his life," Maurer pursued other interests as well. He owned businesses on Callow Avenue, including a health food store - an interest to which he attributed his longevity. He was a charter member of the Eagles, as well as a marksman, an accomplished hunter and a fisherman. "It isn't just my loss. It's Bremerton's," Pendley said. "He just opened up his heart to his neighbors. This is an era that's really lost to Bremerton and it's sad."
Bremerton Sun, 1/4/2000