General

Our high school band reunion in Fort Worth at Paschal High School in 2013.

Randy is one of the world’s great woodwind players who lives in Dallas. This was at our high school reunion in 2013 at Paschal High School in Fort Worth, TX.

John is a great lead trumpet player who teaches now at USC. He was a year ahead of me in high school, and taught me how to read and phrase jazz compositions. This was at our high school band reunion in Fort Worth at Paschal in 2013.

We heard this group in Austin at the One World Theatre on August 3, 2018.  They did two, hour and a half high energy shows that night. These are excerpts from the second show.

William Alonzo Anderson, known as Cat Anderson (September 12, 1916-April 29, 1981), had a birthday two days ago.  Cat became famous in the Duke Ellington Orchestra and was probably the best high note trumpet player in history.

I’ll never forget hearing the Ellington band in Ft. Worth in 1971, probably near the end of Cat’s tenure with the band.  He was amazing with the upper register, but what stayed with me just as much was that he slept on the band stand sitting in his chair when not playing. I had never seen anyone do that before, or since.  I wondered how he knew when to wake up and play, and I also wondered how he didn’t get fired.  I leaned later in life that Duke was willing to put up with just about anything from his musicians–he was very loyal.

I don’t really remember much else about the concert that day. Cat’s playing was so impressive that I still can see and hear him playing “Satin Doll”.  It was so effortless for him to do what very few could even come close to doing.  I did read later in life, also, that Cat practiced four hours a day, both on off days and on performance days. I also heard from friends that he was very secretive about what size mouthpiece he played.  I was told he would always take his mouthpiece with him on breaks.  He was only 64 when he died.  Now that I am 64 I can say that he died very young!