This is the one with which I might-or-might-not sit in - once a month - when dropping off Mrs. bloke at a meeting in Memphis (same night of the week).
After their Christmas concert, they always take a break, do some recruiting, have a sign-up party, and re-up their dues.
I've never seen the (entire) band (not just the tuba section) this large before.
I suspect it's because their winter concert is actually CONCERT music (not Halloween/Christmas/patriotic/etc.) and INDOORS, in addition to people still feeling a bit claustrophobic after the top-down mandated socioeconomic shutdown through which we suffered.
Working up towards the Christmas concert, the only person who tended to show up to play tuba was the fellow with the big nickel Czech kaiser BB-flat. The designated section leader (the top-action tuba on the other end) had a conflict for that concert (probably the orchestra at his own church).
...so four of them have been showing up (according to other pictures I've seen on facebook) since then.
Starting with the top-action tuba...
That one's a Jinbao 3+1 compensating BB-flat. I believe it's a factory hybrid franken-model, which uses the Jinbao Hirsbrunner-copy rotary BB-flat body with a 3+1 compensating valveset pasted onto it.
The second instrument is FatBastard (and - again - I'm not a member of the band).
I believe the third instrument is one of those economy model Jinbao rotary BB-flat tubas. I'm thinking (if not now) in the past, Tuba Exchange sold a bunch of those.
The fourth one looks to be an Eastman 6/4. I didn't walk over and glare at it, but - as I was told the owner is a college freshman - I seriously doubt that their parents sprung for an actual Yamaha.
Again, the 5th tuba is a nickel-plated no-name Czech kaiser. That tuba has been in my shop. I tooted on it after doing some soldering, and judge it to be a (good) bit better than (and no offense to owners of BB-601's) a Cerveny 601.
I was actually in Memphis on Monday evening to run a repair errand at someone's home (elderly person) as well as look at this band's librarian's back-up flute, which Mrs. bloke had just repadded. The flute is a fancy-but-40-year-old-or-so American flute. The lady (who hadn't played this back-up flute in a long time) told Mrs. bloke that it was playing flat for her. I brought stuff with me (including an all-new head cork - in case the existing one leaked after moving it inward), but I was able to move the head cork in towards the embouchure hole with it continuing to seal. Subsequently, the flute played flat-and-sharp (as those old flutes did, as all older American flutes were basically A=438 tone-hole-spacing flutes, with slightly-trimmed-shorter headjoints) rather than (only) flat. Based on what the lady revealed to me, she admitted to monkeying with the head crown (ie. "tightening" it) which is obviously what pulled the head cork outward - causing the flute to play everything a bit flat.
Again, their upcoming concert is real band music, not "band pieces", and not schlock, which is why (I suspect) there were upwards of (I didn't count) eighty people there.
The gent with the nickel-plated kaiser is a successful commercial real estate developer, so something tells me that the more he gets back into tuba-playing, the more likely he might be to "move up in" (ie. pick up a nicer) tuba, that that old kaiser is pretty darn nice.
euphonium:
The short-haired gent is a consistently-good/reliable player, and the black-haired young man - I'm told - has been selected as 1st seat in the all-state band two years in a row. The closest-to-the-camera euphonium gent is a reliable player who shows up prepared.
