[Dixielandjazz] jam session in Calif.

[James Kashishian]

I was in Long Beach, California last week visiting my father.  I gave
banjoist Jim Jones a call as he & his wife, Jane, visited us recently in
Madrid.  I met them for a drink at their house in Palos Verdes, overlooking
the coast.  You can see practically to San Diego from his garden!

He invited me to a jam session on Sunday.  Listmate Bill Simmons was on
piano.  Can't recall all the names of the others.  It was  a full 7 piece
band, along with 2 extra trombones (me being one of them).  One of the
trombonists was 85 yrs old and sounded GREAT!  Beautiful tone & good ideas.

In general, the guys were all good. I found it a bit odd to sit down, but
the whole front line had chairs.  I tend to move around a lot, and sitting
down just means I scoot around a lot in the chair!

I wanted to dedicate Red Sails in the Sunset to the memory of a friend who
had just died (and had always said she wanted me to play it at her funeral.
The trumpeter told me to take the melody line, so I counted off & promptly
played Old Rockin' Chair!   :>
It works more or less for the first 4 bars, then....my first thought was
"these guys are playing some weird chords".  Then, I realized what I had
done!  Couldn't get Rockin' Chair outa my head for the whole song then.   

I had been introduced as the guy that had just played for 1 billion people,
so that little mistake brought me back to earth where I belong!   :>
Anyway, nobody but the other musicians noticed, and we all had a good laugh.
And...."That's JAZZ!    :>

I was able to get a taxi with a wheelchair ramp, so my father was able to
"escape" from the hospital for the afternoon.  My oldest son, who lives in
Seattle, was also with us.  Made for a pleasant afternoon.  

I was sporting a new (for me) trombone.  Several days before the jam I went
into a music store to buy a trombone mute, and came out with a 1973 Olds
trombone!  Good salesman!!   It's in perfect condition, slide and all.
Lovely horn, but smaller bore than the one I play.  I played it last nite at
our weekly gig.  I found it to be bigger in the lower register, and could
hit some notes above that I normally don't get to.  However, the bore thing
bothered me a bit.....I could overblow it easily, killing some of my
"famous"  (?) soft sound.  Dunno if I'll keep with it or not at the moment,
but it's a very nice horn.  $495 was the price.  Dunno if I was taken or
not, but with a 20% discount due to the strong Euro, I felt it was ok.  Got
the $30 mute for free!    :>

The slide is interesting in that the bottom slide is bigger in size than the
one above.  Has anyone seen that before?  Usually, when putting on cream, I
run one slide around & around, and sometimes swap them, but when I went to
do that with this one, the upper, outer slide wouldn't fit on the lower
inner slide.  Weird!  

Jim