Stratford Street Big Band

The last few months, I've been playing piano in a big band, playing mostly 40's music in the manner of Glenn Miller, Woodie Herman, Duke Ellington, and so on. It's about 21 pieces most of the time, consisting of 6 saxophones (3 alto, 2 tenor, 1 baritone), 5 trumpets, 4 tenor trombones and a bass trombone, and rhythm section (piano, bass, drums, and 1-2 guitars.) I was invited to join the band by my friend Scott Miller. Scott and I, along with a drummer named Don Main, had a trio in high school - The Blue Notes. The previous pianist apparently was a classical pianist who, though a fine pianist, just wasn't used to playing from a lead sheet or in the jazz style.

One of our trombone players, Lee Shuster, provides a lot of sound equipment for our gigs, and recently recorded the band at a dance we did for a church youth fundraiser. Here is a slide show of the band and some of the dancers over our rendition of "Yes, Indeed," a classic from Tommy Dorsey's band. Lee (who does not usually sing) and Katrina Madsen are the vocalists. Enjoy!

Cleaning the Conference Center

On Tuesday night, Vickie and I filled an assignment from church to help clean the LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City, across the street from Temple Square. The building seats 21,000 people, with no interior pillars at all. As you can see from the pictures, it looks something like the Starship Enterprise.
Vickie ended up cleaning brass railings for 2 1/2 hours (our shift was from 9:30 pm to midnight!) I was assigned to vacuum carpets in two of the seating sections on the main floor, using a back-pack vacuum. My best guess is that I vacuumed a swath of carpet approximately 3 feet wide and a mile long! Will we do that ever again? Well, maybe...