Busy weekend! Saturday night our Dean Solden Trio with Surry Scheerer played Goodnite Gracie's to a good house. The first set was our best ever, and my brother Paul and his friend Debbie were in from Colorado to see it. That was particularly fortunate because then they left and the second set was a train wreck.

Sunday night was the II-V-I Orchestra at the Creekside, and another one of those alarmingly talented high school jazz pianists sat in. Sorry I can't remember his name right now but he was good. He did clutch up on the end of Count Basie's "JaDa" because the Count Basie Ending wasn't quite as he remembered it.
Here is my approximation of the Count Basie ending, in Db because it seems like so many of the great big band charts are in Db, and here is a low-fi audio example in MP3 format, Neal Hefti's "Splanky", from the classic 1957 album "Atomic Mr. Basie". Neal Hefti is of course most famous as composer of the Batman theme, as well as the Odd Couple theme, but also wrote several bonafide jazz classics, including "L'il Darlin'", "Kid from Red Bank", "Cute", and "Cherry Point".

He is the author of the first tune I ever learned on bass guitar. I was in eighth grade in Reed City and the band director, Jerry Thornton, announced we were going to have a big band for the spring concert and who wanted to play bass guitar. As the bull goose tuba player at the time I was the logical choice. We got out the skeezy Italian hollow body bass guitar, he put the sheet music to Neal Hefti's "Cinnamon Kisses" in front of me, and said "This is a Bb. This is an Eb. The frets go up half steps, and if you go up four frets you're up to the next string". I memorized the part, took the bass home for the summer, and sat around trying to play along with my brother's Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper records.


For all of us here at "Jazz with Jerry Brabenec", it gives me great pleasure to announce that we have earned certification as an official Hosta Free Web Page. We will display this symbol with pride and continue in our efforts to protect the World Wide Web community from undesired exposure to hostas when browsing the web.

Tigers fans: TV20 will broadcast the following sixteen (15) regular season Detroit Tigers Baseball games:

1. Monday April 10, vs.White Sox 1:05pm
   
   
2. Thursday June 1, vs.Yankees 7:05pm
   
   
3. Saturday June 3, vs.Red Sox 7:05pm
   
   
4. Thursday June 8, @White Sox 8:05pm
   
   
5. Saturday June 17, @Cub 4:05pm
   
   
6. Saturday June 24, vs.Cardinals 7:05pm
   
   
7. Friday June 30, @Pirates 7:05pm
   
   
8. Thursday July 13, vs.Royals 7:05pm
   
   
9. Saturday July 22, vs.Athletics 7:05pm
   
   
10. Saturday July 29, @Twins 7:10pm
    
    
11. Thursday August 29, @Devil Rays 7:15pm
    
    
12. Saturday August 5, vs.Indians 7:05pm
    
    
13. Friday August 11, @White Sox 8:35pm
    
    
14. Saturday August 19, vs.Rangers 7:05pm
    
    
15. Saturday August 26, @Indians 7:05pm
    
    
16. Friday September 1, vs.Angels 7:05pm