Side Door Seven

Those of youz who missed last night may live to regret it. Ahh, maybe that's saying too much, but the folks who came down to the Side Door last night made for a good ol time.

Ralph told me he was feeling kind of ragged and maybe not quite on top of his game. He brought to mind a record I have of a band called the Quintet. It's a single concert of a dream jazz band, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. [Like seeing Tony, Bela, Sam, Jerry, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor on one bill.] They got together for one show, Parker showed up late with a plastic horn, the guys were at each other's throats apparently, there was no crowd cause there was a big heavyweight boxing match across the street, and everything seemed to point to a doomed show. Instead, they put on what many have since called the greatest jazz concert ever.

I myself was lobster red from playing at the Sinkland Farms Chili Cookoff, and Joe was preoccupied and sour-looking (looming financial crash on his mind?). Doug and Wayne seemed ok, but who knows what demons are invisibly pursuing them? Doug Conner's brother was sick, Jeff Wynn seemed kind of sickly.

We had new sound guys trying out a whole different setup. We had very few confirmed attendees and it was lookin' like the whole night might be the musicians playing to each other. To say the least, our show plan had some vulnerabilities. It's not like a calamity or anything like that, but looking forward in time, I had to prepare for a "miss" of an event.

And I have been preparing for that "miss" since we started.

In the face of daunting challenges, I told Ralph, thinking of the Massey Hall Quintet show, we had a chance to play our best show ever. Who knows? Maybe we did--it was good set, anyway.

We had a respectable (for us) attendance of some 35-40 folks. We played some good music, we shook out some really good, seldom heard tunes, and we had great sound. We got good tapes of the whole thing. On top of that we had an awesome jam till the wee hours. We love to put on our show, but the jams we've been having after the Sessions have been treats all their own. (Like a great B-side on a great single. (Someone ask Jason if he knows what a B-Side is.))

I'm likely to post some recordings later, but let me get the thanks out of the way.
Everyone who attended! You keep the Side Door rockin' - c'mon back on October 11th!

Wayne for playin' and for setup; Ralph for playin' and for the door; Joe, Doug Capobianco, Susan, Dale, Jason, Casey, Doug Conner, Jeff, Jim, Nancy, Kendall, Scott, and me for playin'! Jason (Hillbilly) and Todd for awesome sound, Jim Wheeler for taking lots of read-deal photographs, Dr. Carl, Amy, the Radford Village Villagers, John, Nancy, Scott, Britanny, and everyone who came along for interest. Y'all make this thing happen.
You can't have a party all by yourself.

Anyone who was there can chime in on the comments if you had a good time, but among my highlights were, Doug Conner's Song for Life; Jim Kern and Jeff's Sultan's O Swing, my chance to play Althea, a long slow song I love; Casey and Dale on Doin' My Time, the JB's playing Uncle Pen. At the jam we heard bunch more less-traveled tunes--a bunch of bluegrass and blues from Kendall, Tim O'brien tunes galore from Dale, and a Ramblin' Fever from Scott. That's just off the top of my head.

Thanks again, everybody and I hope we'll go bigger and stronger next month!

CB out!