Update after Nice Weekend

I thank you for your comment, Meg. I'm glad you are interested and I'll be glad to help out with your blogging if you need any. It's actually not too hard once you get into it.

I had a remarkable weekend, myself. I had listed in my calendar, a bunch of things to do on Sunday. I had my regular duty as "sound man" at church at the 9:30am service. This service turned out to be a very interesting one, since we had a guest deliver the sermon. This was the President of the University of Claremont Theology Seminary (I'm not sure of the name, but the speaker was quite eloquent and very human, yet erudite).

Then, I had scheduled a possible "jam session" at 2pm in Playa Del Rey. This is run by ace trombonist Dick Nash. Dick was head honcho here in town all through the sixties and more. Now Dick is more retired from the day to day studio biz, but he is active in concerts and is frequently recognized as the legend he is. He's also really a profoundly nice guy and fun to just "hang with". So I had hoped to go down to the jam. . but I was doubtful, because I had a 6pm gig listed at the La Canada United Methodist Church.

Well, I got a call about 6pm Saturday, from the girl singer with the Jack Lantz band (the one with the supposed Sunday gig) and she told me the gig was about to start. She asked how soon I could be there. I said "twenty minutes" and proceded to break a whole bunch of speeding laws on my way over to the church located near JPL north of Pasadena.

The gig went great. I showed up and the first trombone player, Lori Stuntz, passed "Laura" from the Kenton standards library over to me. I sat down with the mouthpiece barely stuck in place in time. . .

I did kinda "kick butt" on this one. I'm usually pretty good when the adrenaline is runny high. . . so the legend continues. . . .["he just sits down and then he. . ."]

Anyway, it was fun to play a set on the new Stainless Steel Giddings and Webster mouthpiece. It sounds and feels great. AND it's very easy to keep clean.

Anyway. This odd change of plans allowed me to go and spend the entire jam session time down at Playa Del Rey. So I brought my laptop and recorded the time that I was there. Dick was his usual really nice sounding and nice-guy self. And I was able to contribute some jazz too.

Unfortunately, I got quite a bit of wind "bump" in the mic. I hadn't thought to put on the wind screen. It still seems to have captured the spirit of the thing. I'll have to see if I can get the low wind noise out using digital processing tricks.

This jam session is worthy of note, especially since it has been going on every year on Jeannie Moody's birthday for more than twenty years. There is a picture on the wall of Dick Nash doing this thing back when he had a big head of dark hair. I'd say that might be the late sixties or early seventies.

More on this after I figure out the mastering of the recording. The audio is definitely there. I'm listening to a good harmonica solo on "Prelude to a Kiss". We had Dave MacKay on Piano, Dick on trombone, Pinky Winters and LucyAnn Polk for singer duty, Dick Goldsmith on trumpet in the early part of the jam; Vince Fanneli on tenor sax all nite. Joe Correrro played drums And a young bass player named Justin Valdivia (he's going to be quite a good bass player. . .good feel).

Of course I got to play a little. Particularly nice was a solo with Bill Sinclair on Piano and me on trombone. Bill switched out on keys when Dave took a break. That's the way this thing goes. It's informal but regularly scheduled, with some folk as sort of regular attendees. Others just pop in. . .like me.

I've been busy as you can tell, I hope to get more pictures up and so on. Maybe I'll take some photos of the very nice jitterbug dance crowd at Alpine Village this Monday night. It would be a good record of what that regular gig is like. Also, its "Ocktoberfest" at AV right now, so maybe there is additional stuff going on. . .who knows?

Chris

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