[Dixielandjazz] RE: Strange gig

[Shortuba at aol.com]

Hello all -

Sometimes it seems like your last gig was your strangest.  Last night, we sat 
out in the sun at our local AAA ball park (Iowa Cubs, farm team for the 
Chicago Cubs - and I used to play with Butterman at Wrigley) and played for two 
hours straight, with almost NOBODY paying any attention to us.  At the end of the 
two hours, we had been told, Goose Gossage (some of you remember him - if he 
still wasn't wearing his mutton chops, I wouldn't have recognized him) would 
be doing an interview.  So we stopped playing and went to get the (free!) brats 
and burgers everyone else was eating.  We'd been told "a half hour", so we 
came back in 30 minutes to find that Gossage had JUST gotten there, and when he 
was done, we played one tune and it was time to start the game, so we had to 
quit.  All this while another band played outside the front gate. Guess it 
doesn't sound that weird, but it sure was at the time.

When I played with the West End Jazz Band in Chicago in the 80s, we played 
the closing of so many businesses, we thought we'd take that up full time.  But 
we got a country club gig out near Crown Point Indiana once.  Two and a half 
hour drive one way, and such convoluted directions that I had to leave bread 
crumbs to find my way back.  And it turned out to be an awards dinner for a 
bunch of surgeons - we were the dancing entertainment after the dinner, but since 
they all had surgery the next morning, they all left!  We played two tunes and 
drove back.  Even with the long drive, I was back home before the time that 
the gig was supposed to end!

I guess it's all in what's weird to you.

Mike Short
Party Gras Classic Jazz Band
Des Moines, IA