[Dixielandjazz] He's back

[Jim Beebe]

It's  true...I am back. Be forewarned.  The last 4-5 months have had much more excitement than I can handle.  Moving, health issues and a trip to the hospital emergency room, computer hassles and whatnot.  

I had considerable computer hassles and out of the blue a benefactor emerged and sent me a brand new computer with lots of power and memory.  The computer was set up just in time to get in on the 'worm-blaster' virus. This entailed countless phone calls to various tech people and just now I am finally getting it all sorted out.  I would like to publically thank this benefactor and I imagine that he wishes to be anonymous.  A number of people have been encouraging me to do more writing and I hope to do that.

I apologized to Kim Cusack for that stupid post that I wrote. He was not amused and rightly so.

Someone commented that I had not reported on the La Crosse Jazz Fest.  I was not able to attend it because of health hassles but I got to the Freighthouse Sunday aftnoon to catch some old friends, Connie Jones, Chuck Hedges, John Bany, Charlie Braugham, Bob Hirsch, Bobby Lewis, Eddie Higgins and others. They all played beautifully. Bob Havens was with Connie Jones's group. Oddly enough, Havens and I have only crossed paths a few times over the years. He was in fine form and played just great.  He told me that  some years back the Illiana Jazz club engaged him to do a concert and sent him one of my LPs with a note that said..."This is the way we like it here."  Man, I could just here the jeers and taunts  when he played that record. We had a good laugh over that.

The La Crosse Jazz Fest is a wonderful                           Fest on the smaller side.  The la Crosee Jazz Society are a wonderful group of people who work very hard to bring this off.  If you have never attended this, make  an  attempt next years to do so.  It is on the f irst weekend of August.

Jim Beebe