[Dixielandjazz] OKOM and Hungary

[Schnabbels at aol.com]

Listmates,

What follows is a little self-indulgent which, if you think about it, happens 
every now and then on DJML anyway. So bear with me (and I trust you can still 
find your delete button).

So here it goes:

This coming Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the brutal suppression of 
the uprising by the Hungarians against the communist regime. It happened on 
November 4, 1956, a Sunday. Phosphor grenades rained on Budapest. Almost 2800 
died. On the other hand, some 200,000 were able to flee to western Europe, 
because to borders were temporarily unguarded. NATO sat on its hands, not willing 
to confront the Warsaw Pacr and risking WWIII.

Now, you may well ask, what has this to do with OKOM?

It was on that very same Sunday that I received my first trombone. It was a 
typical Dutch fall day: grey skies, rainy and windy. I had just turned 16 and 
had expressed the wish to play the trombone. My Mom had recently been divorced, 
money was scarce and she worked very, very hard to provide for me and my 
younger sister. What she did was to contact an old highschool buddy who happened 
to be a recording engineer for Phonogram (Philips) and thus well-versed in the 
music world. He located a horn for me which we I picked up on that very same 
fateful Sunday in November, 1956. It was a Huettl, made, ironically in what was 
then Chechoslovakia, a country which lateron would have its own problem with 
the Soviet Union. The horn was nickel plated and weighed a ton, but I did not 
know any better and was absolutely extatic. Subsequently, I had the privilege 
of receiving lessons from Anne Bijlsma, first seat trombone of the The Hague 
Philharmonic. (BTW, Anne, pronounced "oHne, is a Frisian boy's name; he had the 
good sense of naming his son Anner, who became a world-reknowned baroque 
cellist).

I joined my first OKOM band a year later and have been playing ever since. In 
Holland, in Germany and, later in Chicago, and now in Arizona. Am looking 
forward to the week-end after next (November 9-12) when we have our Festival 
here. 

If you have read this far, thanks for your indulgence. At times one just has 
to share moments in history that are important to you, especially when you are 
getting older.

Regards,

Robert van der Plas
Scottsdale, AZ