[Dixielandjazz] 4th of July

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

from Jim>
> We were followed by a brass group (military) from a U.S. base in Germany,
> who said their book included things like That's a Plenty!  They were
> strickly brass.

I did some of these gigs with the AF band but we played with outside concert 
/ jazz / protocol combo groups.  Not the most fun gigs but interesting 
sometimes.  On one embassy gig the Protocol combo that I was in sat up on 
the swimming pool cover which was like a floor more or less but a little too 
shakey for my taste.

We played one 4th of July when the cloud cover was very very low and the 
fireworks went off above the cloud up in the mist.  That was something else.

I didn't do a 4th this year but I played at the Adams Mark hotel the night 
before.  The hotel is located square to the Arch in St. Louis and very 
close, just across hightway 55/70.  The fireworks were framed within the 
Arch and over the Mississippi river.  The flashes could be seen reflected in 
the mirror glass on several buildings and the arch.  We were about 4 floors 
up and it was nice that they waited for our break to shoot everything off. 
It was really something to see from that point. Other than that the area was 
like a zoo with thousands of people coming in to see the show.  Lucky we had 
valet parking for the hotel.  Most parking was blocks away.

Larry
St. Louis