Recaptured Memories

Today I made a wonderful discovery. The very first digital camera that I ever owned, which I had purchased only a few months earlier, has actually survived the fire!!!

We were cleaning out the dining room in preparation for tearing down the house, and I decided to cut open the melted wad that my new nylon backpack had become, just to see if by any chance there was money, or my old passport in there. We had discovered previously that melted plastic or nylon would actually occasionally protect an item, that is, if you could manage to get the melted stuff off of it. I used a saw to get inside the backpack because the scissors weren’t tough enough. Deep inside, surrounded by many other melted things, was the bright blue neoprene eyeglass holder that contained my camera.

My camera looked brand new, exactly as it had the last time I saw it about a year and a half ago. The battery was dead now, of course, so I took it home and charged it on my replacement camera’s charger. The three months worth of pictures, which dated back to December 2004, were all just fine!

I had purchased this camera just after Thanksgiving, immediately prior to the final leg of our Fall 2004 tour, and now I'm so glad that I had not yet downloaded any of the pictures, because it meant that they weren’t trapped forever inside my melted laptop.

I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I was to get a tiny piece of my pre-fire life back and intact. Here are some highlights from my reclaimed photos:

My very first skydiving experience, and Brittany's too. Brian skydives a lot. We had a day off and Brittany wanted to do it for her birthday. I was game.

That's me way up there! I loved being so high in the air, especially after the parachute opened and the wind stopped rushing past my ears. It was so quiet and peaceful then. I paid big bucks for a video of this experience but it was destroyed in the fire. I'm glad that Doug came along and took some pictures.

Brittany became seriously ill the next day after we went skydiving, although the timing and the aftermath of the skydiving which first called attention to her illness, may very well have saved her life. Anyway, a bunch of us from the tour got together and crocheted and knitted her a patchwork blanket.

Doug and I took a lovely trip to Florida for a few days in January 2005.

This is the only picture that I have of Seymour now. All of the other ones are gone. Seymour died in the fire and we miss him so much.

2005, the year in review

This was a most bewildering year. It started off nicely enough, with a January vacation in Florida for Doug and me, and a 4 month ship gig with an awesome itinerary to look forward to. Then the fire happened, but I was still able to do 3 months on the ship. Things were up in the air with the insurance company for the longest time. Our credit cards were maxed out from all of the stuff we had to buy. There was weirdness on the fall tour. The lack of decisiveness about what we were going to do with our house was scary. Then I had a really nice December full of interesting gigs. But I have to say that over all 2005 has definitely been the strangest year of my life so far.

gigs, house plans

We got back from the tour and picked up Ted. He really seemed to enjoy staying at Nancy’s townhouse. She has lots of nice windows to look out of – not like this dark, dismal place we are renting until we get our house built.

I had a very busy and fun December. The gigs ranged from holiday pops concerts with several different orchestras, to jazz combo gigs at holiday parties, to Amahl and the Night Visitors, to West Side Story at the Lyric Theater. We finally had a chance to work on our house plans. At the end of the month we met with the owner of a design-build firm and he felt that they would be able to build our house within our budget. This company is known for their quality work and they seem to build in a style that we like. I’m very excited. Finally something is happening!

"In the Mood" Fall Tour Part Six

After our fabulous Halloween Party in Elmsford NY we played in
Smithtown, NY
New Wilmington, PA
Youngstown, OH
Pittsburgh, PA
and Sandusky, OH

Unfortunately our show was the last thing scheduled for this beautiful old theater in Sandusky before it closed, which was very depressing.

The next day I drove the car so that the wardrobe person and her assistant could relax on the bus. I got some nice foliage shots in WV on the drive down to Beaufort, SC.

The rest of the fall tour was on the east coast. From November 8 through November 19, we did shows in:

Beaufort, SC

Rocky Mount, NC

Harrisonburg, VA

Newport News, VA

Clayton, NC

Southern Pines, NC

Elmsford, NY again!

New Bedford, MA

and finally, Kingston NY

Here are a couple of pictures from our last day off in Plymouth, MA

Apparently this is Plymouth Rock

It seemed rather fitting to be visiting Plymouth just before Thanksgiving!

"In the Mood" 2005 Halloween Party!

The Halloween party took place at our hotel in Elmsford NY where we were playing at the Westchester Broadway Theater. There were tons of fun costumes and a pinata. I'm not exactly sure why, but it seems there are often pinatas at our "In the Mood" parties.

Doug went as his theme song "I'm Getting Cement All Over Ewe." Notice the words "ALL OVER" written in cement on his sheep's costume. Cute, huh?

Since we seemed to be headed in a barnyard animals direction, I picked up this cow costume at one of our many stops at Walmart for the low, low price of $11.99. I though it needed some accesorizing so I hung a milk bottle below to catch the drippings.

Here the lovely Quincy and beautiful Brian L, dressed up as some typical members of our audience.

Brian C and Al M are probably the ones responsible for the pinata.

Nicole's costume was a reinactment of our Pawley's Island SC show which was easily our most rugged venue. The stage was inside a tent!

It was definitely the most intricate costume of the evening.

Bud, our producer, pianist, and the creative genius behind the show wore his Uncle Sam costume.

One time at a sound check Bud said "I need more Christina in my ear" which somehow became "rear" and she willingly obliged and paid tribute to it with her very cheeky costume.

Wendy wants to suck some blood!

The Inimitable Big Al

Tom got mugged in the hallway of one of our hotels. He decided to pay tribute to that exciting event because it was even scarier than Halloween!

Tugboat Brandon

Emily the Geisha Girl

At one of our boondocks venues the local crew was made up of people from the county jail, so our technical director Jeff came as one of them.

Wild Bill W

This is either Jody or Bill H.

This too must be either Jody or Bill H.

We had an honorary guest - Arthur Francesco, who sang in the show for the two previous years. I'm so glad he was there - I've really missed him being on the show this year! The final activity was the Beating of the Pinata.

"In the Mood" Fall Tour, Part 5

Holland Michigan Lighthouse

From October 17 - 29 we played shows in the following cities:
October 17: Holland, MI

October 18th: Interlochen, MI

October 21st: Pawleys Island, SC

October 22nd: Wilkesboro, NC

October 25th: Rutherford, NC

October 27th: Richlands, VA

October 28th: Morganton, NC

October 29th: Clinton, NC

I was helping the crew with the driving for some of the shows and I got to wander around Wilkesboro for a bit while the crew was setting up. Here's what I saw:

The Doc and Merle Watson Theatre

This was our theater in Wilkesboro, NC

frankie condon memories

I just learned that Frankie Condon has passed away. Since I’m out on the road for another month I won’t be able to attend his funeral. So I guess I’ll just have to memorialize him here instead.

The first time I became aware of Frankie was when I was away at school, finishing my degree in classical piano. My friends from Montgomery College were all excited about a new jazz club which had opened up down the street in Rockville, of all places. It was called Frankie Condon’s and you could go there to hear live jazz just about any night of the week. It quickly became “the” place to go, and when I finished my degree, I soon became a regular there as well. It was great to be able to go right around the corner and hear the big bands of Frankie Condon, Bill Potts, and Mike Crotty several nights each week, along with the many “name” performers that Frank would book there. At the time, although I was merely a fan of this music, I still realized that it was an amazing thing for Rockville to have an actual jazz scene and Frankie Condon was the man who brought it all about.

A couple of years later I started playing the bass for fun in the Montgomery College Orchestra. Lenny Cuje and Frank attended our concerts fairly regularly because Lenny was dating someone in the orchestra at the time. Frank would come up to me after the concerts and say “When are you going to come sit in with my band?” I was very shy back then and didn’t think I was capable of playing jazz, so although I avoided all opportunities to sit in for about two years, I did begin to realize, because of what he had said to me, that I really did want to give playing jazz on the bass a try. I started practicing with play-along records and took some jazz classes on bass at Montgomery College.

Frank continued to ask me to play with his band, even if it was to just sit in for one tune. Finally I got up enough nerve to say yes. Although I was very concerned about the miserable time everyone else was going to have with me there barely being able to play, it was still an amazing experience to get to play with all of those other seasoned players. I was totally hooked. And even though everyone was warning me how difficult it would be to play Frankie’s bass, with those old gut strings, I really liked it in a way. There was a certain aura, like a real old school vibe or sense of history just oozing out of his bass, and I could feel that as I played it. It was cool. I played on his bass whenever I came to sit in.


When he started asking me to do the whole gig I eventually began bringing my own bass. I played regularly with his band during the late 80’s and early 90’s and occasionally after that. It was an invaluable experience and he was always very encouraging.

I learned many specific things from him about playing bass in a big band, but the most important thing I learned came from observing him playing and leading his band and that was the wonderful feeling of joy and happiness that was always there no matter how he happened to be feeling otherwise. He just loved playing the bass, and he loved playing big band music and he was the one who, more than anyone else, first opened up that whole world of joy and happiness to me. I will always be grateful for that.

Rest In Peace Frankie!

"In the Mood" Fall Tour, Day off in Chicago

We had a day off in Chicago which was one of the many highlights of the fall tour. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast.



The first thing we headed for was the skydeck of the Sears Tower.




That's a pretty nice view from way up there.

We got some Chicago-style deep dish pizza which was excellent, but I think we still like the Armands pizza the best. It's DC based Chicago-style pizza.

Then we were thrilled to discover that there were tickets available for the Chicago Symphony that afternoon. What an incredible orchestra! They played Mahler's Fourth Symphony.

After the concert we headed up to the Navy Pier to meet the bus. We rode the huge ferris wheel and had cotton candy. It was nice to have a day to ourselves for a change. It was completely delightful in every way.

"In the Mood" Fall Tour, Part 4

After playing in Burlington Iowa, we played shows in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Crystal Lake, Illinois. Here are some photos of beautiful Sheboygan which is on Lake Michigan:

In addition to beautiful lake views, the town was really cute and had interesting old-fashioned architecture:

There's Doug standing in front of the theater.

"In the Mood" Fall Tour, Part 3

After our show in Columbus, NE on October 6th, we did performances in Sioux City, IA
Dodge City, KS
and Coffeyville, KS
and then we headed back to Iowa. On our way to Burlington Iowa, we stopped for a long lunch break in downtown Kansas City.

These are the remnants of an amazing antipasta.

Wine, bread, and olive oil. Yum!


Back on the road, heading north.