Long Beach is one of those cities that Does Stuff for Free. Puts on clinics and runs things for kids in the summer and shows campy movies in parks. I imagine some of it has gone away, or acquired a price tag, since the Great Recession began in 2008.

One of the most charming of Long Beach entertainment institutions?

The Long Beach Municipal Band.

The band has been around for 104 years, which takes us back to 1909, when William Howard Taft was president and John Philip Sousa was still writing marches.

The Long Beach band is active during the summers, playing four nights a week, and performs at several parks around the city, including Bluff Park — which is just down the street from where we are staying this week.

The drill: Take some lawn chairs, something to drink, and maybe a picnic dinner and a blanket, spread out on the grass … and enjoy.

The band, which has about 30 members, begins playing at 6:30. In this case, the sun was still out, and quite bright, so instead of staring at the band (and the sun), which was arrayed at the west end of the park, we turned our chairs south and looked out over the Pacific Ocean.

The Municipal Band is quite populist; I’ve never yet been to one of their concerts and not recognized at least half of everything they play.

In this case, the theme was “Cartoon Musical Madness” … which was quite fun. We had a mini-competition to see who could identify the songs being played and the the cartoon (or movie) for which they had been written. (“Some Day My Prince Will Come! From Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!”)

The biggest crowds (like the one on the band’s home page) appear to turn out at Marine Stadium.

Part of the entertainment at the Bluff Park venue, which is in an interesting part of Long Beach, was the people. Lots of reserved oldsters with little dogs, but also some genuine eccentrics. Like the 70-ish man dressed as if he had just emerged from a Disco Era dance spot, who danced throughout. The teenage girl who performed on a Hula Hoop for most of 90 minutes. The joggers who were running up the bluff for extra exercise. The septuagenarian woman who was dancing with her dog, who appeared to be mortified. (The dog, that is.) And five guys who certainly were ex-cons, who appeared to be chemically impaired and were raining F-bombs on each other as the crowd watched nervously — before an authoritative woman led them away .

Drinking is illegal, in Long Beach public parks, but many of the people watching and listening to the band were discreetly sipping wine.

I am impressed that the band is still playing, after four years of economic hardship, and we put money in the collection box as they came by at intermission.

A night of entertainment … at no cost. Sometimes the hassles of living in a city pay off.