This summer proved to be the busiest in several years with much travel – here in the U. S. plus two ten-day trips to England and another overseas jaunt to Greece. When I got on the plane for a cross-country vacation from New York to California with my family at the end of August, I had “deja vu all over again” for a panicked moment. In any event, the ensuing three months since the last Cadenzas has been interesting and quite exciting for me.

The summer began with my attending and performing at the International Women’s Brass Conference (IWBC) in June at Illinois State University in Normal. My involvement as a member of the IWBC’s board has been a terrific experience, providing me with opportunities to work with some of the finest brass players in the world. The conferences are held every three years, and this year’s get-together like past ones provided four days of great music and warm comradeship.

I performed there with drummer Ed Soph and two of my favorite Chicago musicians, bassist Kelly Sill and pianist Mike Kocour. Also featured on the concert, playing with my rhythm section, were trumpeter Marie Speziale and trombonist Audrey Morrison. Audrey is a well-known Chicago-based Jazz trombonist while Marie is best known for her thirty-six year career as assistant principal trumpet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Few know that Marie, now the professor of trumpet at Rice University in Houston, TX, was raised in Tampa, FL, among the Cuban community, playing in Afro-Cuban bands as a youngster and never dreaming she would become one of the finest symphonic players in the country.

Our Thursday evening concert was interesting, and the group was as always inspiring. Marie and I performed an excellent and appealing piece written for us by her student, Matt Holman. Audrey played some of her own compositions as well as some standards and, as always, she proved to be one of the really interesting trombonists in Jazz. She is a very inventive and unique player.

This year’s conference, like those in the past, proved to be fun, musically motivating and quite inspiring. There were many great performances at the conference, and my only regret is that it was impossible to attend them all!

I had to leave the conference a day early, as the group was booked for the weekend into one of my favorite Jazz clubs, the Green Mill in Chicago. We appear to have a large following in Chicago because we seem to fill the club every time we play there. Friday night’s performance picked up where we left off the prior evening at the conference … it just “burned” from note one and didn’t let up till the last note on Saturday night! Ed and I enjoy playing with Mike and Kelly because they are immersed in the music and extremely attentive to everything that is going from the first note to the last.

After lunching Sunday with my dear Chicago friends Bobby Lewis and Trudy Schwartz, I flew home to prepare for two concerts that following week. The first concert on Wednesday was at the Dobbs Ferry Summer Music Series at Waterfront Park on the Hudson River with Bill Mays’ Trio, which this time included bassist Dean Johnson and drummer Ron Vincent. In this beautiful setting right on the river with great musicians, it was fantastic to see all kinds of people, many with their children, picnicking and listening to the music. It is also much fun watching the very small children dance to “live” musicians while they play!

Two days later, my quartet - Bill, Rufus Reid, Ed Soph and I - drove to Boston to play at Ryles, one of the three excellent Jazz clubs there. The group was really “on” that evening, and we enjoyed the many friends who came in to listen to us, among them Charlie Schleuter, the principal trumpet of the BSO, and an old friend I met in Europe, trumpeter Shawn Hines. Besides the playing, being on the road with Bill, Ed and Rufus is always a “good hang.”

I had one day after Boston to prepare for the first of my two trips to England, this one to tour and perform the Miles Davis/Gil Evans Miles Ahead suite with Scott Stroman and the Guildhall School Jazz Ensemble. This was a great tour about which I will go into further detail in the article to follow.

Returning home, I had a week to prepare for a flight to Memphis to perform in concert with Jack Cooper’s group, the Jazz Orchestra of the Delta. This performance was a CD release party for Jack’s new recording, Big Band Reflections of Cole Porter, on which I was a featured soloist along with Nashville vocalist Sandy Duncan. Jack is an excellent arranger/composer who is also Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Memphis, and his CD on Summit Records has been garnering great reviews.

The band, featuring many of the best Jazz musicians in Memphis and spurred on by lead trumpeter David Spencer (also the professor of trumpet at the University of Memphis) is excellent! It was great to go back to my hometown and play with these guys. The concert, held at the Gibson Guitar Factory, was well received and the place was packed with fans of the band as well as many old friends of mine. Unfortunately, my trip there was too short, with no time to really visit because I had to return to England almost immediately for my second engagement there.

Returning home for one day, I again hopped on the day flight to Heathrow. I had time for a short visit with my daughter who is married and living in England with her husband, followed by a week rehearsing and performing the second Miles Davis/Gil Evans suite, Porgy and Bess, with the London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (LPYO). This engagement was part of the London Philharmonic’s weeklong Summer Academy. I will also write in more detail about this week with the LPYO in the article to follow.

I returned home in late July and had a week to rest a bit, then traveled with Bill Mays the beginning of August to teach and perform at a marvelous festival in Kalavrita, Greece. This too was a wonderful experience about which I will write further. Bill and I hope to return in the future to participate again, this time taking our wives with us to enjoy what our host George Babarakos calls, “the Greek way of life”!

After the aforementioned vacation in late August, I came home and hit the ground running, as the quartet was to embark upon eight intensive days together shortly after my return. Bill Mays and I immediately spent a day rehearsing new and older materials that we wanted to include in the upcoming performances. Then I spent a day in NYC working on PR and doing an interview for Ted Panken’s “Out to Lunch” Jazz program on WKCR from Columbia University. The quartet was to perform two concerts in the area followed by a day of rehearsals and four evenings in Birdland, one of New York City’s premiere Jazz clubs. In addition, we were going to record a new CD “live” while at Birdland, all this in the space of eight days.

We began on Saturday with our annual charity concert for the ABC of Ridgefield, CT, an event we have done for the past thirteen years at the home of our friends, Christine and Philip Lodewick. This year our special guest artist was cornetist Warren Vache, one of my favorites. As always, Warren swings so hard and continually proves that he is a great musician.

This concert is for the benefit of educationally disadvantaged young ladies from places like the South Bronx, East Los Angeles, Cleveland and other urban areas where it is difficult for many talented youngsters to find excellent schools and educational opportunities. Having qualified for the ABC program and with the blessing of their parents, they are then brought to Ridgefield to be enrolled in Ridgefield High School, an excellent institution. Most of the young ladies excel in this program and go on to earn scholarships to major universities throughout the country. Many of them then return to their hometowns hoping to bring others like themselves out of similar circumstances, enabling them to obtain a good education and presenting them with greater opportunities in life too. It is a wonderful program of true “give back” from those who are most fortunate to those who are less fortunate. All of us are greatly touched by the efforts of all involved – the young ladies, the sponsors and the supporters of this great organization.

The ABC Concert was followed on Sunday by an afternoon set at the Celebration of the Arts (COTA) at Delaware Water Gap, PA. This festival, initiated by alto saxophonist Phil Woods and his wife Jill, is organized and put on through the efforts of many of the marvelous musicians living in the area, among them David Liebman, Patrick Dorian, Rick Chamberlain, Jim Daniels, Steve Gilmore, Bill Goodwin and others. This is a great festival serving the surrounding communities, featuring groups led by Pennsylvania area musicians along with other artists and craftsmen who live in the area.

Bill Mays, being the resident Pennsylvanian, was our leader and decided upon a set featuring originals by each of us with George Gershwin’s standard “Strike Up the Band” opening the set. The concert, on a perfect Sunday afternoon, was set outdoors with the audience sitting and listening (and/or picnicking) on the lawn on a hillside. It was a lovely day; the concert was well received and, for us, great fun! After the concert, the group with our wives drove to Bill and Judy’s place about an hour away to be feted to a great gourmet meal. What a day! Does it get better than this!

After a day off, the group reconvened Tuesday at Rufus Reid’s home to rehearse with guitarist John Abercrombie who was joining us for our four-day stint at Birdland. The rehearsal was also to prepare us for the “live” recording we planned during our engagement there. Even in rehearsal, this group is so much fun to play and “hang” with. The music, the humor and the comradeship are extraordinary. And then Rufus and Doris exhibited their culinary skills - Rufus at the grill and Doris in the kitchen - proving that they also know how to do it up right! At this juncture, maybe the point should be made that each of us also is familiar with and savors the fruits of the grape along with many various cuisines, so we had some excellent accompaniments to go with all this great cooking!

The following day began our engagement at Birdland, which was to prove very successful. The quartet with John performed brilliantly, and the audiences were very enthusiastic. The sets included originals by all of us as well as the many standards that we enjoy revisiting. I have said repeatedly how marvelous it is to perform with these highly creative musicians, but I feel I can never really express it adequately with words. You just have to be there to experience it! And it’s even better if you are on the bandstand, standing right in the middle of them!

Many of the people who came to see us were friends and/or fans of each of us, all of them remarking on the fact that we don’t often play in NYC’s major clubs. This is a question we ask ourselves often, and one for which we really have no answer. Of course, that is something we would certainly love to change. We immensely enjoyed playing at Birdland and hope to be invited back to perform again in the future.

The “live” recordings we made were engineered by Jim Anderson and came out beautifully; we actually have enough material for a double CD. Jim is one of the great engineers in the business and when it comes to “live” recording, he’s the best! The CD will be released sometime next year.

This fall includes less travel than the prior eight months, though it will be a busy time preparing for various performances nonetheless. Even when not touring I remain busy with my practicing, booking work for the future, working on PR, maintaining my contacts through networking with others and writing new music and articles; and this year I will also be busy editing and mixing the music for the new CD. But this is what makes for a successful and satisfying career - dedication and hard work. The people with whom I surround myself find themselves just as busy doing the same, and this as much as anything, is what presents us the opportunities to come together, working to make beautiful music!

One further note: I want to thank Marion Egge, a dear friend and experienced professional editor who has taken an interest in my writing of Cadenzas and has put her skills at my disposal. As anyone who tries to write should know, help in this area is certainly to be appreciated! But as always, I choose at times not to take the advice of any editor if I feel my thought is more clearly expressed in another manner. So please know that any misuse of the rules or mistakes in grammar are (to her chagrin) decisions of mine and not a reflection of Marion's skills. Marion ... thank you.

My "European Experience" included two trips to London in July to perform two of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans suites - Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess - and a third in August with Bill Mays to teach and perform at a festival in Kalavrita, Greece. Before getting into my experiences in England, I believe I should give you a bit of background on the music and how this came about.

Scott Stroman is the musical director of the Jazz Ensemble at the Guildhall School of Music in the Barbicon Centre in London and also serves as the musical director of the London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (LPYO) Summer Academy. Scott is a wonderful musician, an excellent composer and conductor as well as a fine arranger and trombonist. I have known Scott for about twenty-five years, since he was a student at Northern Illinois University where I was an invited guest to tour with Ron Modell’s great NIU Jazz Ensemble.

I let Scott know I was coming to England, and he wrote back inviting me to be involved in these two events, both of which would occur in July. We were able to work out the details for my being included on the Guildhall Tour and the LPYO Summer Academy.

Regarding the music, this is not the usual big band set-up. The instrumentation for the Miles Ahead suite is five trumpets; four trombones; two French horns; tuba; four woodwinds doubling on various instruments; bass; drums. The instrumentation for the Porgy and Bess suite is four trumpets; four trombones; three French horns; tuba; three woodwinds doubling on various instruments; alto saxophone; bass; drums. No chordal instrument like piano or guitar is employed.

These suites plus two others, Sketches in Spain and Quiet Nights, written to be performed for recordings by Miles Davis and backed by New York’s finest Jazz/studio musicians, were never intended to be performed “live.” The level of difficulty is very high and requires truly excellent musicians to bring out the colors, the depth, and beautiful subtleties inherent in Gil Evans’ writing. Atypical of big band writing, these pieces are much more in the orchestral vein. To plumb the depths, to reach down and get the most out of them, we needed to approach them as such. Understanding the mood of each section, then rehearsing them in a way that allowed the young musicians to grasp what Gil Evans wanted to project was the challenge. I rarely find myself in a position where time and the situation allow extended rehearsal time, but this was the case during both of these engagements, as you will see.

(So many times when invited to universities in the U. S. I try to encourage directors to “think outside the box,” to try something different and to approach their concerts and festivals as more than the “fly in for a rehearsal, do a workshop and play a concert” concept. Even if circumstances necessitate this basic method, there are many creative ways to approach the situation - at least programmatically - and I am certainly willing to work with them from this approach. Unfortunately, this rarely happens.)

It is also interesting to note that the music for the Miles Davis/Gil Evans suites was lost for a number of years until a gentleman by the name of Joe Muccioli reconstructed three of them from Gil’s own manuscript sketches and from the recordings. Joe is a former trumpet player, a student of William Vacchiano; he is also a very talented conductor and knows this music inside and out. I’ll tell you more about Joe when we get into the Summer Academy.

If any of my readers is a Jazz fan and has not heard these suites, I would encourage going out and buying them. They are truly classics in American music. The music is extraordinary, and Miles Davis’ performances are brilliant.
 

Taking the day flight Sunday instead of the usual overnight flight, I arrived in London on that same evening. I discovered that traveling like this seems to lessen my jet lag. I met Scott Stroman and band the following afternoon for our first rehearsal, which was held at a church in a neighborhood not too far from Scott’s home. We had planned a long afternoon rehearsal for the Miles Ahead suite followed by a shorter evening rehearsal for the other materials the band would play on their own first half of the program.

It was obvious to all of us, especially the members of the band, that this music wasn’t going to be rehearsed once and immediately mastered like most big band pieces they were used to playing. They, like me, were going to have to live with this music to be able to bring the most out of it. This - beyond the technical feat required of playing it - was going to be the real challenge. Fortunately for all of us, among Scott’s many great talents is his ability to study and fathom a composer’s musical intentions, then convey to everyone the interpretation, the heart and soul of the music. Scott is amazing this way, and I learned so much by observing him work.

Every soloist approaches a project like this differently. For me, being able to really live with this music rather than the usual – a quick rehearsal and one performance – was a real privilege. I grew up through my college years on this music, and it certainly holds a significant place in my heart and in my musical development. Having the opportunity to perform it “live” was exciting and a bit frightening because it is such a classic entity in the history of our music. As a creative musician, I didn’t want to plagiarize what Miles Davis had done with it; yet because it is such a classic, I wanted to show respect for the style and concept of both Miles and Gil Evans in my interpretation. For me, the only way to do this was to live with it a while, and that is exactly what this tour allowed me to do.

The tour which began the following day would include six days of performing various concerts and workshops before returning to London for our final performance at the Guildhall School. We boarded the bus for our ride north to the Newcastle area for our first endeavor and arrived at a catering hall that was actually part of a brewery. There we met with the two youth orchestras with whom we would share an evening concert after late afternoon workshops conducted by Scott. The following days would amount to more of the same, getting on the bus in the morning, doing one or two workshops plus a concert most evenings. We would be working in the Newcastle area for the first three days, next moving east to Scarborough on the coast for two days, then south to Grimsby, our final travel destination before returning to London. This tour was to be a combination of performance and education.

I won’t go through each day’s schedule; suffice it to say we were busy and on the go most of our waking moments. During that week, I believe we performed four full concerts, shared several other concerts with English youth bands, and performed four or five workshops. We played in several schools, the aforementioned catering hall and several churches, the venues always varying. Despite such a busy schedule, we continued to make time for rehearsing and polishing Gil Evans' music at each day's sound check. None of us tired of working to take it to a higher level each performance.

Most American musicians are aware of the European musical traditions and, in England’s musical history, the importance of the brass band movement as a foundation to their musical structure. Many of their fine symphonic players grew up and matriculated from bands like the Black Dyke Mills Band and others. Though music education in England, as in America, has suffered in recent years from the same governmental lack of recognition and shortsightedness of the Arts’ contributions to society, the English nevertheless take their music seriously, and this attitude is rapidly changing in the U. K. After a recent national survey, a bill was passed mandating that young students of elementary school age be taught and coached in musical composition, beginning at the most rudimentary level. Think about the effect this may have! Imagine how this will stimulate creative thinking among young people there, as well as making them aware of all the great music that surrounds them. Imagine if we had something like this here in the U.S.

I do want to talk about some of the important things I took away from this week. The students were amazing! Though several were substitutes because some regular members of the group were on tour with the Guildhall’s wind band, every participant’s attitude was outstanding. It’s not easy keeping an itinerary like we had; everyone was on the move all the time and worked very hard. Many are the times I hear professionals grousing about much less. Not only did the students perform in concert each day, they eagerly shared in the workshops, relating easily to the much younger musicians we were working with. And they were enthusiastic at each rehearsal/sound check we did before every concert, this being our only time to continue polishing the music of the suite. As I said, this is music one must live with, so every day we rehearsed and polished, hoping to make the night’s concert better then the one before. They performed this difficult music beautifully, and being with them this week was a pleasure. I was proud to be a part of all this.

Watching Scott Stroman work is a real delight! I cannot say enough about him. I observed him with groups of all kinds, from children as young as six years of age to high schoolers, university people, adults, and professionals. He has the ability to reach out and touch them all. His enthusiasm and energy are infectious and, in everything he does, he puts forth twice the effort of anyone else. His conducting is a thing of passion and joy; he instinctively knows how to bring the music out of everyone. He is truly one of the finest talents in music today – not just Jazz – classical music too!

A great example of Scott’s versatility was apparent when we arrived in Grimsby on Saturday, our last stop before returning to London the next day for the final concert at the Guildhall. We had driven about three or four hours from Scarborough, and upon our arrival he was dropped off at the church where we were to perform our music that evening. He began rehearsing with the sixty-voice chorus – some adults and teenagers, but mostly young children ten or under - music for an original mass he had composed using chorus and a small Jazz ensemble composed of four rhythm and two horns. The mass was to be performed the next morning at the Sunday service before we began our trip back to London.

Scott rehearsed with this young chorus for two hours before having us instrumental musicians join them. By the time we arrived, he had them singing and harmonizing all the parts of the mass – and these were his original melodies, some of them in odd-meter time signatures! It was amazing. After this rehearsal was finished and we had a bite to eat, we were back with the large ensemble for our sound check and a full concert. The following morning we performed the mass at the church, boarded the bus and returned to London where we unloaded, set up the stage, did our sound check and then performed our final concert. Through it all, Scott’s energy and enthusiasm was infectious; he never stopped seeking more from the music, continually polishing and refining while trying to delve deeper into Gil’s music. This is truly a musician!

My week with the Guildhall band was tremendously satisfying because of Scott’s great energy, the enthusiasm of the band in approaching the challenges of playing this music, and the appreciation and obvious enjoyment the English audiences displayed to us at each concert. We worked and played very hard, but the reward was great! It was a wonderful experience.
 

Another interesting and certainly inspiring event of my summer was my second trip to England for the week spent with the London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (LPYO), performing the second classic Gil Evans and Miles Davis suite, Porgy and Bess. Having recently completed the tour with the Guildhall Jazz Ensemble performing the Miles Ahead suite, I was eagerly anticipating playing more of this wonderful music.

On the Guildhall tour, I observed Scott working in several settings - in a Jazz context with his band and with various youth orchestras, and also on the occasion he conducted his Jazz mass involving a small Jazz group and a sixty-voice choir. As I said, he is one of the most talented people I have known in my many years of experience at bringing the most out of a group regardless of age or level of talent. At the Summer Academy he would assume the mantle of another role, that of conductor of a symphony orchestra.

This event marked the first time the LPYO had been assembled for a weeklong Summer Academy, basically an immersion course of life in the world of orchestral performance. The concert - for which we would spend four days rehearsing and doing workshops before performing the music at St. Johns, Smith Square in London on the fifth day – would feature Scott conducting Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements and Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion, Piano and Celeste. Joe Muccioli would be the musical director for Porgy and Bess. As I stated earlier, Joe, a former trumpet player and student of Bill Vacchiano, is the gentleman who reconstructed the three major suites of Gil Evans from Gil’s own sketches and from the recordings.

The LPYO is a group of young musicians ages eighteen to twenty-five or twenty-six who plan having careers in the symphonic area. They audition for positions in the orchestra and perform various concerts throughout the year. Besides the daunting task of preparing the Bartok and Stravinsky pieces, Porgy and Bess put an even greater challenge before those twenty-two players performing this piece, because only three of them had any experience playing Jazz music. And because the flautists and clarinetists did not “double” beyond their major instruments, we had to use separate players for each of the woodwind parts in those categories. This music is some of the most difficult that one could put before a group, experienced or not. It is demanding musically for everyone and particularly a physical challenge for the brass. And considering that these were almost all classical musicians with no Jazz experience, the undertaking was even more difficult.

Joe Muccioli and I had never worked together before, though he has conducted all three of the suites many times with various soloists among whom are Randy Brecker, Jon Faddis and Lew Soloff.  Joe understands and knows this music thoroughly. Over time he has probed this music deeply and it has revealed many of its secrets to him. In addition to his knowing this music inside and out, Joe exhibited just how talented a conductor he is.

At the first rehearsal, Joe and I were concerned about whether we could bring the performance of the suite to the level we hoped. Though all the players were extremely talented, much needed experience was lacking. And because of the difficulty of the music, the members of group seemed not to have the skills to bring this music off. But having dealt with young musicians in situations such as this many times before, I told Joe not to be discouraged, that we had to rely on the innate desire of players of this caliber to reach deeply within themselves and meet any challenge put before them. Challenge them we did, and meet the challenge they did! And more!

We buckled down, and Joe started to take the music apart, rehearsing it thoroughly and getting to the heart of it all. As I said before, Joe truly knows this music, so he knew just how to expose all the subtleties while working out all those passages wherein the understanding of the music seemed to elude the players. Patience was the name of the game and, slowly but surely, quality came to the fore and the music started to come together. Especially rewarding was seeing the woodwind section – all young ladies – come to the fore and grasp this music before anyone else. And the sounds they produced were incredible. You could see the pride coming out in all these young musicians as their confidence in themselves grew and they started to grasp what this music was all about. What a great experience seeing this happen!

As each day passed, the young musicians became more comfortable with the music and with Joe’s guidance started to stretch the musical boundaries. They no longer feared the piece, so they became more musically curious and eventually more adventurous with it. We held rehearsals with various sections wanting to refine their parts as much as possible. They were truly interested and started to love the piece. They were as enthralled and enthusiastic about it as they were about the Bartok and Stravinsky. At one point in the week, we considered cutting two of the thirteen sections because we were concerned about the length of the program. The trombone section came to us and begged, cajoled, and then bullied us to restore them. When we did finally did so, the whole group was ecstatic about it. This showed us a lot! It was truly important to them that their performance of this piece be on a par with the others. What a thrill for Joe and me; we knew then that we were doing our jobs!

For me as soloist, Porgy and Bess is also a great challenge - on both a physical and musical level. On the physical side, one has the horn to one’s face a great deal of the fifty-five minutes it takes to perform the suite, and stamina presents a large challenge.  I was concerned about this physical aspect until Joe Muccioli told me that other players who had performed this suite faced the same problem; his words certainly helped my confidence!

As for the musical side, I again felt that I needed to live with the music a while to be fully able to understand and get inside of it. As with Miles Ahead I wanted to be myself, but there also is certain faithfulness to the music that in my opinion must be maintained. Much of Porgy and Bess includes playing long written passages – beautiful ballads and slow movements – that nevertheless lend themselves to one’s individual interpretation. So the challenge being both physical and musical, there was much work I needed to do to bring to this performance the best I had to offer.

So we worked through the week, and while we were heavily involved in our own project, I took every opportunity to watch Scott conduct the Bartok and the Stravinsky pieces. These are difficult works, especially the Bartok for the strings. I listened and observed as they came together, and again could sense the pride the musicians began to feel as this occurred. Scott is a patient musical director, always encouraging his players, never the opposite. His conducting is extremely clear, so expressive, and very rhythmical; I felt as if I knew every phrase just by watching him. Nothing escaped him; he was totally into the music. I haven’t seen anyone conduct like this since Leonard Bernstein, fearless, unafraid to be himself on the podium.

Along with the working part of our week, I must tell you that the Academy was also organized and run beautifully. Maria Smith, the Education and Youth Orchestra Administrator for the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), headed the Academy. She is an enthusiastic and adventurous young woman who set the guidelines and made sure that they were followed - though with a velvet glove. She was always there to solve any problem for student and faculty alike. There was nothing lacking for us; solutions were always found for the many problems that arose each day, and we went our various ways unaffected. With the students it was sometimes something personal; Maria was there for them in these instances too. Three extraordinary musicians - Richard Mallett, Ashley Morris and John Cobb, formerly the principal trombone with LPO - worked on the administrative team, ably assisting Maria. They saw to everyone’s needs and were just superb. As I said, everything was organized beautifully.

We also had the assistance of various members of the LPO, including principal trumpet Paul Beniston. They are amazing musicians and connect immediately with the students. The reality of orchestral life, the rewards and the expectations are seen more clearly through the eyes of those who are have been there and done that. Paul is an outstanding musician, and watching him conduct master classes or give a lesson was really interesting for me.

John Barkley is one of London’s best lead trumpet players and an excellent Jazz musician as well. He also came out on his own time and assisted us, even sitting in on the concert. John is a natural musician, just a pleasure to listen to and much fun to work with. Besides being busy with all his free-lance activities in London, he is also a member of the excellent London Brass, a marvelous group that I would recommend to anyone!

Our week climaxed with the concert at St. John’s, Smith Square, one of the fine smaller concert venues in London, a short distance from Parliament. The hall was packed; the acoustics were excellent and the audience enthusiastic. The orchestra played beautifully, bringing all the efforts of the week to fruition in a fantastic concert. Everybody was feeling so good about what they had accomplished that week, and this is really the reward for such hard work, isn’t it?

So the week came and went, and it was time to say goodbye to all the extraordinary people I had the good fortune to work and to make great music with. I told Maria Smith that working with others in circumstances like this made for a feeling of family, so when the time comes to bid one another farewell, there is a deep sense of loss. Returning home is always wonderful, but I feel like I left a part of me back in London. How lucky can a guy get? I was about to find out …

George Babarakos! What an extraordinary man! I met George at the 2002 International Trumpet Guild (ITG) Conference held that summer in Manchester, England. George told me of a small festival for wind instruments that he hosts every August in his home village of Kalavrita, Greece, and he wanted to know of my interest in coming there sometime in the future. He told me about some of the people who had been involved in past festivals, many of whom I have known for years. Among them were Fred Mills, for twenty-five plus years a member of the Canadian Brass, Vinnie DiMartino, Roger Bobo and Marty Erickson. I told George I was very interested, and he said I would hear from him.

Sometime early this year George wrote inviting me to be a part of this year’s faculty for the festival. I accepted George’s invitation and all that was left to discuss was exactly what I would be doing there. George was very open to my suggestion that pianist Bill Mays come with me, so he worked out the details and agreed to my idea that we would teach together as well as perform together “in duo.”

Besides Bill and me, the American contingent of the faculty was to be made up of tubist Roger Bobo, soon to join the faculty of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England; saxophone artist Fred Hemke, a member of the faculty of Northwestern University; and the Millennium Brass Quintet.

If you are not familiar with the Millennium Brass Quintet, it is a wonderful group! Its members are Vinnie DiMartino, trumpet artist serving on the faculty of Centre College in Danville, KY, also the president of the ITG; Rich Illman, trumpet artist and professor of trumpet at Michigan State University; Scott Hartman, the former trombonist with the Empire Brass Quintet, now on the faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston; hornist Lisa Bontrager, professor of horn at Pennsylvania State University; Marty Erickson, the former principal tubist with the U. S. Navy Band in Washington, DC, now on the faculty of Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, WI. All are great soloists, well known in the chamber music field, who come together to perform in this quintet. In several perfomances, Marty's wife, Alison Shaw, an excellent percussionist who is quite in demand as a performer and teacher, assisted various groups.

Also included were a number of Greek artists, most of whom were members of the Athens Symphony, and Gerassimos Ioannidis, second trumpet in the Athens Opera Orchestra and one of the foremost teachers of trumpet in Greece. I had met Gerassimos (Gerry) in 1980 at a seminar in Bulle, Switzerland, organized by brass guru Jean-Pierre Mathez; at that time we talked about my coming to Greece one day. Gerry is a wonderful and gregarious man who is the perfect companion to Babarakos. Full of humor and always smiling, he was the host for all of the festival’s late-evening concerts given outside in the streets of Kalavrita.

Now I must tell you about George! George is a man with extraordinary energy and great vision. He is a trumpet player who teaches and directs two wind bands in Kalavrita - one for younger children and one for older ones - and another in Athens which is, I believe, more for adults. He lives in Kalavrita with his wife Helen, but spends half the week in Athens. He is on the go constantly. I don’t know when George sleeps because he was always there to tell us good night after the evening's late festivities and up before all of us the next day to greet us for early breakfast! Everyone in Kalavrita knows George, and George knows everybody! He is Babarakos! He is more famous than the mayor of the town, probably more famous than the president of Greece. He is a mover and shaker who makes things happen, and it is all for music and the people. For Babarakos everything is possible! If Babarakos can’t do it, it can’t be done! Again, he is a most extraordinary person.

Bill and I left for Athens on August 3, arriving the next day – quite a long flight. George met us at the airport, and we embarked on the drive to Kalavrita. Just before turning away from the seacoast to begin the last leg into the mountains, George introduced us to the “Greek Way of Life”! It was about about two o’clock in the afternoon and we stopped at a lovely restaurant in the town to have lunch. We sat outside under the trees; a warm breeze was blowing in from the sea. At this point, George proceeded to explain to us what comprises the Greek way of life.

First, one must relax. Then one must never be in too great a hurry. Days must include time for work and rest, as well as much time for meals, family and friends. He outlined the festival's daily schedule like this:

Each morning started with breakfast at eight-thirty or nine o’clock, followed by classes beginning about an hour later. Around one-thirty or two o’clock we gathered for lunch, which lasted until three. Siesta time then took over, until five o’clock, after which there was more teaching till seven or seven-thirty and an hour’s dinner between eight and nine. The first evening concert would start at nine-thirty at the high school, and the second concert would be held in the streets at various locations in town starting an hour or so before midnight, depending on what time the first concert ended. All the concerts were for the people of the town. Whenever the second concert ended – most of the time about one o’clock in the morning. – we enjoyed a late supper at one of the many restaurants. Then we were off to bed an hour or two later, knowing only too well that we had to be ready to begin another day no later than eight o’clock the next morning.

So after a sumptuous Greek lunch and learning all about the Greek way, we continued our drive to Kalavrita, a small village in the mountains on Peloponnesus, three hours from Athens. It is a lovely place that holds much history from World War II where the townspeople suffered greatly from the Nazis. Kalavrita's population is about 2,100 people, and it lies in a valley between some fairly high peaks at an altitude of approximately 700 meters. It is a good place for tourism, and in the winter it is a popular ski center serving nearby Mt. Helmos. The village is lovely!

We arrived that afternoon about four o’clock, in time for a bit of rest before joining everyone for dinner and the first night’s activities. George asked if we wanted to play that evening on the street concert and, of course, Bill and I replied, “Yes.” When the late evening concert began about eleven, the streets were crowded with townspeople; all of the town officials were there as well, including the gentleman whom we might call the cultural minister. Though I was not surprised to see the streets crowded with interested listeners, I was amazed at the number of younger families with extremely young children, even toddlers, in attendance at such a late hour. When I asked George about this phenomenon, he told me that this was the Greek way - the children join with their parents to enjoy the music. It was beautiful watching the youngsters watch us - sometimes dancing to the music, sometimes merely sitting with their parents to watch us with rapt attention.

The concert opened with various chamber groups comprised of varied instrumentations; the players, students and faculty alike, were excellent. Then George announced that Bill and I were to perform next. We played two or three selections and our music, being so different from what they had heard earlier, enthralled the audience. Then we asked tubist Marty Erickson to come join us. Marty plays great Jazz and he knows many tunes. With us, he walked the bass line on the tunes as a rhythm section bassist, then played improvised solos as well. Marty is a great musician, and the people just loved it when we made our duo a trio! We played about forty minutes before bringing the concert to an end. Then as people disbursed and went home we proceeded to a restaurant for our late supper. With variations in the programs, this was pretty much how each day and evening was to go. What a life!

Bill and I actually had a rather flexible routine because the festival is really a classical affair, and the schedule had been pretty much set before we got there. The number of participants who had any experience in Jazz was limited, so we mostly taught each day between our siesta and dinnertime. We also saw various students privately, and I participated in the late session of the morning trumpet classes. Still, that left plenty of time each day for us to rehearse a lot of music - new and old - so we used the time doing just that. Most people don’t know what a rare thing it is for musicians to have such a luxury; Bill and I took full advantage of it. Whenever we found any free time, we would look for a piano. We played every moment we could find and at every occasion to which we were invited. It was such a pleasure!

A bit into the week, Vinnie DiMartino and I talked about including Bill and me in some pieces that the Millennium Brass might play for one of the street concerts. The quintet had two arrangements that could work for us – Johnny Mandel’s “Emily” and another piece based on “Sweet Georgia Brown.” We rehearsed these for the students during one of the morning trumpet classes and, though primarily serving our purpose, it also afforded them the opportunity to see how musicians are able to put something like this together. The arrangements with Bill and me inserted in the middle for a duo section worked great! If you have the opportunity to hear the Millennium Brass Quintet in concert, don't miss it!  I had the pleasure of sitting in to watch two of their rehearsals, and it was a thrill! They are fantastic!

This was a wonderful week! Bill and I attended most all of the concerts and were especially taken by the recital presented by saxophone master Fred Hemke. Fred is a true virtuoso! He is so musical. And whether he performs avant-garde literature written for him or earlier nineteenth-century pieces, his sound, control and musicality are astonishing. Fred's accompanist, Efi Papathomaidou, was also amazing! Efi, who is from Athens, played with all the artists on these concerts. She performed the most difficult pieces, such as the virtuosic compositions on Fred’s recital, with seeming ease; she also played chamber music with all the other performers on every one of the street concerts - doing it on an electric piano! And she even played “pop” tunes with some of the student groups. Nothing got past Efi, and nothing seemed to faze her; suffice it to say she was extraordinary. Efi and Bill formed a mutual admiration society, always very attentive to each other’s performances.

Bill and I also played in the streets for every night concert and loved it; he performed outdoors on the same electric piano mentioned above. But for our final endeavor on Saturday evening, we presented a full duo concert at the high school. Everyone was there - town officials, the faculty, the students and many of the townspeople with whom we became friends over our week in Kalavrita. Bill and I performed a number of our original compositions as well as our favorite standards, and the audience was very enthusiastic about our music. I believe, too, that they appreciated being able to hear us in a concert setting with Bill playing on a nice grand piano. What we do as a duo takes on much more significance when - as is usually the case - Bill plays on an acoustic grand. Few pianists get the sound from a piano that does Bill; his touch and technique are beautiful, and coupled with his imaginative improvisations, his sound is a thing of special beauty.

The audience loved the music we played for them, but the highlight of the evening was the song Bill composed in honor of our visit there – “Kalavrita.” The place erupted and, needless to say, this piece was the climax of the evening. It brought the house down, and Bill immediately won the hearts of the entire town! And deservedly so! No matter where, no matter the situation, he puts his heart and soul into every moment, giving so much to everyone involved, whether student, teacher or person in the audience. Bill is an exceptional musician and human being, and I’m so fortunate to have him for a musical partner.

After a very late night and many sad goodbyes, we left early the next morning for home. As I have said before, when one spends an intense period of time and forms bonds with people, there follows a real sense of loss upon leaving them. This is the way we felt when we left Kalavrita. We made many new friends and strengthened bonds with those we already knew; they would all be missed. We were deeply touched by our experiences in Kalavrita – memories that will remain with us forever. One doesn’t easily let go when feelings like these run so deep. Bill and I hope to return so we may get together again with all our friends - the Greeks living there and the Americans who, like us, came to make music there. And we will again become immersed in the people of Kalavrita and the Greek Way of Life!