Chuck Findley

If you went to the fall 2014 concert of the UNT One O’Clock Lab Band, you’ll remember that Jay Saunders brought in Chuck Findley as the guest artist.  One of the tunes he played was basically this composition, which Chuck dedicated to his wife.  It’s called, “The Day We Met”. This is the original song, recorded in 1971.

Jack Daugherty was a music producer in Los Angeles who is best known for producing some of the Carpenters music.  In 1971, he put together the top musicians in Los Angeles to record this album, which is one of my favorites.  A 23 year old Chuck Findley is the featured trumpet soloist, just to show you how soon he had reached the top.

A friend of mine, Roger Dismore, had the album and made a tape for me.  I decided I wanted my own copy of the album for the liner notes and photos, which proved to be difficult due to the lack of sales of the album.  I basically spent half of my adult life looking for this album, and a few others, in record stores throughout the area!  I couldn’t find it in cd form, either.

When Chuck Findley was the guest artist with the One O’Clock Lab Band in the early 80’s, I asked him about the album. He really liked the album, too, and had his own problems finding it.  He told me he finally found it in Europe for $.99 one year when he was over there. I almost asked him how much he wanted for it!  I probably should have known at that time I was headed toward a jazz museum someday with thousands of albums in it.

It wasn’t until eBay came out that I finally was able to locate a copy of this album.  I had been looking for around 25 years at that point, and I thought eBay was the greatest invention ever.  I must have bought ten copies, I was so happy.

This album is now 45 years old, which is very old in the music world.  It sounded different in 1971, but has aged pretty well.  Chuck’s solo shows what a studio musician must be able to do on a daily basis. You go in, play through a piece of music two or three times, if that many, and move on to another arrangement to sight read.  Chuck was so good at that, and has been my favorite player for years.  He is the quintessential studio trumpet player, being able to play lead, jazz, or section parts.

This music has never been issued on cd that I know of, and is not in the iTunes store.  I wonder if it will be lost forever as time goes by. Won’t that be sad?  It’s basically been lost since it came out, as far as I’m concerned!