[Dixielandjazz] Dr Chet Moore obit

[Stephen G Barbone]

 From the Redding California Newspaper.

Sadly,

Steve Barbone
www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


Shasta Dixieland Jazz Festival creator Moore dies at age 89

By Dylan Darling  Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Harold "Dr. Chet" Chester Moore, 89 -- who spearheaded the Shasta  
Dixieland Jazz Festival that drew more than 10,000 to hear bands from  
around the world -- died of lung cancer Friday at his home on Wilshire  
Drive along the Sacramento River in Redding.

"I don't know anybody who didn't love Dr. Chet Moore," said Harry  
Grashoff, a longtime friend and fellow Rotarian.

Moore was not only the driving force behind the festival -- which  
started in 1986, ran until 1997 and then had a another run in 1999 and  
2000 -- he was a successful dentist, former military test pilot and  
avid golfer.

"He played golf until six months ago," Grashoff said.

On the green was just one of many places where Moore's humor and  
joking nature would emerge. Grashoff said Moore had a small canon that  
shot blanks but made a big bang, that he liked to fire off when a  
fellow golfer was swinging a tee shot.

Once, after he and Moore finished a round of golf, Grashoff got in his  
car, turned the ignition and fired up his engine. He hit the gas and  
the car didn't move.

"I thought, what in the world, I've lost my transmission," Grashoff  
said. Up came a smiling Moore in a van with a jack in the back.  
Grashoff's car was up on blocks and Moore had done the dirty work.

But Moore’s mischief was tempered by his big heart and cutting  
intelligence, Grashoff said.

“The guy had talent beyond belief,” said Tom Stovall, another  
friend of Moore’s and fellow Rotarian. “He was a dentist, a pilot  
— he could do anything.”

For years, Moore flew to Mexico every six months to do aid work. He  
was a computer whiz and had a very green thumb.

“He raised more vegetables on a small little plot than most farmers  
can do on an acre,” Grashoff said.

And then there was music — Moore’s passion.

As a curly-haired 21⁄2-year-old Moore played the trap drum in his  
family’s own band, dubbed the “Musical Moores.” Each summer his  
father, also a dentist as was Moore’s grandfather, would pile his  
wife and their four kids into a touring car pulling a fully-equipped  
trailer and they’d tour the Chautauqua circuit. “Baby Harold” was  
the youngest.

Moore’s interest in music stayed with him, and he earned a degree in  
music from Baker University in Baldwin, Kan.

After serving as a test pilot, and crashing 11 times, during World War  
II, Moore went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles  
to become a dentist.

In 1949, while at school he married Barbara Putnam, who was also a  
musician. She died in 1982.

Grashoff said Moore’s survivors include the couple’s three  
children, Kathy Tyers, of Bellingham, Wash., Cheryl Gough of Boseman,  
Mont., and Robert Moore of Montague, as well as longtime companion  
Joyce Tharlson.

Moore’s interest in music never flagged. Seven years after moving his  
practice from Long Beach to Redding in 1979, Moore led the charge to  
start the Shasta Dixieland Jazz Festival. A success in its 1986 debut,  
the show went on until 1997. Moore served as director for the first  
five years.

After financial problems caused the festival to be canceled in 1998,  
Moore became involved again and directed the event in 1999 and 2000.  
He resigned as president in June 2000 because of health problems and a  
month later the next year’s show was canceled.

“He was the reason the Shasta Jazz Festival happened,” said Bernie  
Baker, owner of Bernie’s Guitar.

Reporter Dylan Darling can be reached at 225-8266 or at ddarling at redding.com 
.




Steve Barbone

www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband