Early Autumn in the Park

Today was the first jazz workshop of autumn, astronomically speaking. Despite the almost-seasonal weather outside today, it was hot in the McRae Park building today. Not the temperature, the music. We had a great turnout of 14 musicians that just "clicked" today and the music was great. We started out with four guitarists (!), two of them first-timers (Kevin and Dave), one returning from his first visit last week (Chris) and an old hand (Tim). There were two drummers, too- Gene and Ken (who was here for his first time). On saxes we had Ira (alto), Wes (tenor) and Peter on bari sax. On bass and trumpet we had Sam and on upright bass we had Margo. Vocalism was handled by Annie, Toria and Dick.

To break in the new folks gently we started out the instrumental hour with "'Round Midnight" before getting to the advanced stuff. I'm kidding. We started with "Blue Bossa" but we did do a Monk tune later on at the instigation of Ira. Other songs included "A Foggy Day," "Early Autumn," Autumn Leaves," "Autumn in New York," "'Tis Autumn," "September Song-" there was obviously a seasonal theme- "I Thought About You," "Let's Cool One," "I Should Care," "I Could Write a Book," "Peri's Scope," and "St. Thomas." There might have been a few others. Kevin took notes of the songs we played and e-mailed me the list he kept. Thanks!

Every so often in life you get to have so much fun that your face is kind of sore from smiling afterwards. I felt like that today! Next week (October 3rd) we'll have fun all over again. Hope you can be there!