We had an early departure for an 8:30 show in central NJ. A rather large ES with two shows of ~ 400 kids each. I had played there last year as a solo, so there were some familiar faces.
The music teacher, Mr. A, sat in on trombone and was great. He played on ‘Charlie Stone’, and, in the first set, really picked up the tune out of the ether. And when I came in on my mouth trombone, there was a remarkable look of surprise on his face. Cool. He really got it down for the second set. What a treat for the kids to see their music teacher really wail. That’s a rare and precious event in a school.
One really funny thing happened in the second set. As we introduced Chuck Berry with his signature lick, Donnie (semi-asleep) played it in A, went to B, while we were comfortably in Bb, right in between. We fell apart, and was wonderfully fresh.
The school commented that we were the best assembly they ever had. Yup.