[Dixielandjazz] worst gigs)

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

Friday I played a Mardi Gras gig at a local nursing home.

A little lady came in late and sat right in front of me.  She talked to me 
and I did my thing for an hour.  When I got done I closed off thanking them 
etc etc.  A couple of minutes later the little lady looked over at her 
neighbor and asked "when is the entertainment going to start"?
Larry
StL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Butch Thompson" <butte1 at mac.com>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] worst gigs)


>
> Here are a couple:
>
> 1)  Following the cold weather thread, I marched in the St. Paul Winter
> Carnival parade c. 1963 with the six-piece Hall Brothers Jazz Band.  I 
> don't
> know how we got into this situation, but it was grim indeed.  The
> temperature was something like 20 below Fahrenheit.  There were medics and
> cars along the route in case anybody fell out, and we did see a couple of
> cheerleaders -- wearing no more than they would in a steamy high school 
> gym
> -- who collapsed and were taken away.  The band had no kind of uniform, 
> and
> it was so cold that we dressed in layers of sweaters, jackets, ski pants,
> whatever.  In just a very few minutes my face was so numb that I couldn't
> find my mouth with the clarinet mouthpiece.   We gave up any pretense of
> actually playing, but at the end of the route was the St. Paul Auditorium,
> where a sizable audience was waiting to see the parade in warm comfort. 
> As
> we shambled in, we heard the announcer say something like "what is 
> that? --
> maybe it's a band --   I guess it might be a band"   etc etc.  Of course 
> we
> couldn't play.  These days they call off the parade in that kind of 
> weather.
>
> 2) Nothing to do with weather, but --- one St. Patrick's day in St. Paul, 
> I
> think about 1980, I was engaged to play solo piano in a downtown joint
> called Fiorito's.  This place featured a six-piece jazz band every night,
> but the owner/manager, inexplicably, had decided to put me on alone.  When 
> I
> arrived, the place was so crowded I had trouble getting to the bandstand,
> where the piano -- a spinet, of course -- was draped with bodies, several 
> of
> them sound asleep, others just extremely relaxed. It looked hopeless, but 
> I
> needed the money, so I elbowed my way across the room to the bar, where 
> the
> manager was frantically filling steins and glasses with green beer (the 
> St.
> Paul streets run with the stuff on St. Patrick's Day), and he suggested 
> that
> solo piano might not be required.  So I fought my way to the exit. I never
> got paid, of course.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz 
> Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
>
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
>
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>