A busy weekend full of festivals. Saturday I drove out to Moorpark, in the southern regions of Ventura county. I was playing with Der Madderhorns traditional German brass band at the Enegren Brewing Company's Oktoberfest. It is a two-day celebration. It is a hard gig...two hours of solid playing. The tuba gets no rest in the realm of polkas. My lederhosen are getting a little tight. A loss of 10 - 15 pounds should solve the problem. I am certainly not going to buy a bigger pair.
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| with the owner |
Sunday was a trip down to South Los Angeles. The ARK was doing the closing set at the Watts Towers Jazz Festival. It is actually a two-day festival, the first day is The Day of the Drums. Closing the festival is a traditional role for the ARK (Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra). I've done it only once before. It was years ago, too long ago for me to remember when. What I do remember was that in one tune Horace (Tapscott) nodded at me to take a solo. I didn't want to take a solo and indicated such. Usually that is enough for the leader to move on to the next person. Horace acted like he didn't get the signal. But he did. He just decided to ignore it and kept vamping. He vamped and the band vamped. I realized that things weren't going to move on until I took a solo. I wasn't going to win this one. So I took a solo. It wasn't a great solo, but I looked like less of a fool than I would have if I hadn't taken one and let the band keep vamping with everyone looking at me. No such drama this year. Just playing tuba parts. The ARK has always had a mix of young and old. That is part of the strategy. Here are some shots of a few of the band members.
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