Archives for November 13, 2008

Just a quick post tonight–but then, the gig was a quick little gig. However, it was a lot of fun. The setting was Gun Lake Community Church; the group was a sort of truncated big band consisting of a mix of guys I”ve played with before and others I”d never met; and the occasion was the church”s second big band night, the first having been last year.\r\n\r\nIt was fun playing through the books. I recognized many of the arrangements from back in my junior high and high school days, playing lead alto in the Formal Aires and Stardusters dance bands. It was neat to run through the old, familiar charts again. But being at heart a combo man, the highlight of the night for me was trading fours with Joe LaJoye on a head arrangement of “Route 66,” with Joe scat singing.\r\n\r\nThere”s always something to add interest to things that should be simple, though. Tonight I forgot my pants. Let me clarify: I didn”t do the gig in my skivvies. I arrived wearing jeans and lugging my change of clothes, including a black jacket, tie, shirt, dress shoes, and, I thought, black pants. I thought wrong. My pants weren”t among the items in my case.\r\n\r\nIt looked like I was going to have to either make a mad dash to the Walmart in Hastings and quick buy a cheap pair of blackies or else do the gig in jeans. Aaaaargh!\r\n\r\nForrest Evans to the rescue. His dad, Bob, had the gig, and Forrest, the keyboard man, called his mom, who drove out and delivered a pair of Bob”s pants for me to wear. The waist was a little large and the bottoms of the legs were several inches up my calves, but sitting behind the bandstand, none of that mattered. Bob”s pants did the trick in a pinch.\r\n\r\nBut geeze, how embarrassing!\r\n\r\nMy mind isn”t getting any sharper as I get older. I”m just glad I remembered to put on my underwear this morning. There are some things I refuse to borrow.