When Harry R. Paul talks about playing with the Sounds of Freedom, an all-volunteer military concert band, he's at times so overcome with emotion he can't speak.

"It's a good feeling," he says. "We're like a family."

Paul, a 71-year-old U.S. Army Corps of Engineers veteran and Fresno resident, has played piccolo and flute for the band for six years. His son, Jason Paul, 44, and grandson, Trevor Paul, 14, play trumpet in the band, which averages about 40 members.

The band will play a free benefit concert Sunday at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. There will be a silent auction, donations taken and a CD for sale. Proceeds will benefit soldiers returning from the Middle East.

"These are our neighbors. These are our relatives. These are our friends," says band director Monte Gmur, 57, a Clovis resident who joined the Sounds of Freedom four years ago as a tuba player. Four months later, he became band director. "We want to do something significant to help them. Supporting our soldiers means looking after them once they're home."

The concert will include an eclectic mix of music.

Although the band is best known for its patriotic music, including "Stars and Stripes Forever," "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful," it also plays Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and Rolling Stones tunes. "We're not above playing 'Who Let the Dogs Out' and 'YMCA,' either," Gmur says with a laugh.

The benefit concert is just one of many the band will play this year. The band travels throughout the state to play at change-of-command and award ceremonies, patriotic holiday celebrations, troop homecomings and concerts in the park.

A group of World War II veterans formed the band in 1984. There were about a dozen members then, says Fresno's Hollon Kinney, a charter member and the band's first director. Kinney, a U.S. Army Air Corps veteran who turns 89 today, plays trumpet. Until this year, the group was known as the 509 Military Band because of its affiliation with American Legion Post 509.

Clarinetist Lynn Lindsey, 54, joined the band after filling in at an Easter weekend concert in 2005. "A soldier came up to me after the concert and said, 'Thank you,' " Lindsey says. "I just connected. All those years I'd played at football games and pep rallies, but this is a niche where I can connect with the veterans and give back."

Lindsey's father, who died in 2004, was a WW II prisoner of war and part of the Bataan Death March; he earned a bronze star.

"He loved military music," Lindsey says. Her father-in-law, who died in 2005, was a Pearl Harbor survivor.

Many of the band members are veterans. Some have their own bands or perform with other community bands.

Kinney has directed many bands, including the Selma Community Band, which he helped form in 1979.

He has played trumpet for 75 years.

"When I sit down and open that folder of music, there's not another thing going on in the world," he says. "All your problems go away. That's what music does to you."

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