[Dixielandjazz] My not very short bio - please ignore.

[Edgerton, Paul A]

I was born. That's what the District of Columbia claims, but the hospital
that hosted the event no longer exists. Conveniently, I have no memory of
the details. 

I'm pretty sure it was shame and embarrassment that drove my new parents
back to Minnesota from whence they came. I mean embarrassment about
Washington. Not about me.

When I was a kid, we had a huge upright grand piano. I was inspired by it
and came up with endless ways of abusing it such as playing it with my feet
-- while jumping on the keyboard. My mother insisted that I take piano
lessons. I hated them. I much preferred using the piano as a dive platform
and put a mattress on the floor beside it. I took a similar approach to the
piano when I was in college, but now I was bigger than the pianos, so *they*
took the leap instead of me. Don't worry, they were only those awful
Wurlitzer electric pianos. It's a wonder I ever passed my piano proficiency
exams. Seems they wanted to get me out of the piano lab.

By the time I was in first grade (and in case you're confused, that happened
long before the piano lab incident) I discovered Ringo Starr and decided
that I should become a drummer. My father naively bought me a snare drum and
an instruction book. The book came with a record demonstrating the
rudiments. A guy would play each one slowly and then speed up until it
sounded like a roll. There were 26 of these rudiments, each one sounding
exactly like the others. I was a smart kid in those days, so I just figured
out how to do the roll and didn't waste my time getting there like the guy
on the record.

When I was in the second grade, I found out that my school had an orchestra
and that I could join it if I had an instrument. The director suggested a
violin. I was thinking string bass, but there was an obvious ergonomic
mismatch. My grandfather came to the rescue and bought me a drum set. I
don't think my parents ever forgave him for that reckless lapse in judgment.

There was already a kid with a drum set in the orchestra, and he was a lot
better than me. Fortunately, I knew a couple of older boys who played
guitar, so we formed a combo. We knew two songs: Louie, Louie and Monday,
Monday. In a blinding flash of creativity we found that by putting them
together we could add a third song to our repertoire and called it Louie
Monday. We played at the local A&W drive-in for root beer floats, proving
that even very young musicians can develop a drinking problem.

Fast forward a few years. The family had moved to Colorado, but I was still
schlepping the drums around. By the end of sixth grade, the school band's
drum parts had lost their fascination, and I was seeking greater challenges.
A second-hand clarinet was discovered in the closet, found to be playable
and I enrolled in a summertime crash-course. Our record player was
well-stocked with Pete Fountain and Benny Goodman, so they were my first
models.

When I was in ninth grade they started a "stage band" playing lots of stock
arrangements. I got a used alto and ended up as the lead player, more from
hubris than talent. The next year I moved to high school, went to the jazz
band rehearsal and found to my horror that they already had five alto sax
players, all of whom were better than me. But they only had one tenor player
and needed another.

A quick trip to Goodwill put a $50 tenor sax in my hands. I didn't
immediately fall in love with the tenor. I thought it was an ungainly thing,
but it was my admission to the band so I was motivated to get it under
control. Somebody be sure to tell me when that finally happens.

One of the charts we played (Leap Frog) had a short tenor solo originally
played by Dave Pell. The other guy was too chicken to do it so I got my
chance. There was a written solo, but I brashly made up my own. This got me
a tremendous response, and I rapidly became addicted to taking solos. I
wouldn't touch the alto again for years. Coincidentally, that other tenor
player is a now lawyer living in DC.

For the next decade or so I was a big frog from a small pond who jumped to
deeper waters and lived to croak about it. I went from being first tenor in
the Colorado all-state jazz band to North Texas State University, where I
was one of literally hundreds of tenor players. Returning to Colorado, I
contented myself by playing in various weekend big bands -- including one
that was similar to some of the old territory bands.

Towards the end of college I started playing in the Dixieland band. The
previous incarnation of that band were the winners of the second annual
Southern Comfort competition. We did rather less well, but got lots of gigs
and carried on for a couple of years. Some of us got together to read old
twenties stocks and that grew into the Hot Tomatoes Dance Orchestra. I
lasted about 10 years with those guys.

Since then, I spent a few years in Florida working for a rodent and a few
more years in California working for a bison. I have a day job helping the
State Of California dispose of your healthcare dollars and a weekend job
helping jazz fans dispose of their entertainment dollars with the
co-conspirators you know as the Fulton Street Jazz Band. I am proud to say
that I have at long last made peace with pianos everywhere. We avoid each
other. 

And don't ask about the drums, some things are better left to rest.

Paul Edgerton
Designated Clarinetist
Fulton Street Jazz Band
Sacramento, California