The Allentown Band has been a Lehigh Valley institution for 190 years. Ezra Wenner has been an institution in the Allentown Band for 75 years.

That’s 75 years of holding down the trombone chair in one of the United State’s finest concert bands. Wenner, 90, is believed to have played with the Allentown Band for more years than any other musician in the band.

Wenner has received recognition for his longevity in recent years.

In 2015, the Allentown Band board of directors named the band’s west Allentown headquarters Ezra Wenner Hall.

Over the years, Wenner has been section leader, trombone soloist, board member, and has held band offices.

Wenner started his career as a musician at the end of fifth grade when a trombone was available for his use over the summer. He joined the band the following fall at the former South Whitehall High School.

Wenner’s parents moved and he had to give back the horn. It turned out that his homeroom teacher at then Allentown High School was the band director. He talked Wenner into joining the band and, says Wenner, “I bought my first brand new Holton trombone for $140.

“The junior high band director took an interest in me,” Wenner continues. “He played in the Allentown Marine Band. So, I went into the Marine Band as trombone soloist. I played one summer season in 1942.”

Later that year, Wenner joined the Allentown Band.

It turned out that, besides directing the Allentown Band, Albertus Meyers took over as the director of the Allentown High School Band while its regular director served in the Navy. Says Wenner, “Bert Meyers recruited about five or six of us [from high school] because bandsmen were in the service.”

Wenner continued his music endeavors outside of school.

“During my senior year, I started playing professionally with dance bands, big bands,” he notes. “Shortly after high school I was drafted. I ended up in a post band, basically a dance band. This was toward the end of the war [World War II] so we mainly did recruiting, USO shows, radio broadcasts, things geared to getting guys to reenlist.”

After the war, Wenner worked for Mack Trucks, for a local gas company, and the Fuller Company. Eventually, he wound up in the design engineering group at Air Products, Inc., where he worked for 27 years before retiring in 1983.

“I was only 55, but I was doing a lot of playing.”

No understatement.

He played with the Matt Gillespie Big Band, the Allentown Symphony, for circuses, and for “The Ice Capades” when that show played the Lehigh Valley. He also played in pit orchestras for community theaters, including Munopco, Guthsville Playhouse, Civic Theater, and Muhlenberg Summer Music Theater.

Wenner also did 30 years of Grandstand shows at the Great Allentown Fair and, he points out sheepishly, “From 1947 to 1974, I played burlesque.” That would have been at The Lyric, now Miler Symphony Hall, Allentown.

When asked how are things different now from when he first started playing in the Allentown Band, Wenner says, “The most obvious thing is that we have women in the band now. Bert [Meyers] fashioned it after Sousa. His band was all-male, except for the harpist. When Bert retired in ’76, Ron Sherry brought in the first woman. Today, it’s almost a 50-50 split [of men and women].

“Another big difference,” he continues, “is the type of work. We lived on the bus in the summer, church picnics in Berks and Lancaster counties. Things like that.

“Our year used to run from Memorial Day to Labor Day. There used to be at least three jobs a week. Now we almost cover the whole calendar year. That’s good because it keeps the band together.”

Wenner isn’t sure how long he’ll continue playing in the Allentown Band. “I don’t have a date,” he says, but notes, “I’m glad for the opportunity to play. It has opened doors for me. I’ve been places I’d never have gone to. I’ve met people I’d never have met. It’s been a good, enjoyable experience. The band has good people, a good mix of people from their 20s to the 80s.”

Regardless of how long he continues, Wenner has made a great contribution to the Allentown Band and to the Lehigh Valley music scene. And it’s clear he loves the music as much as ever.