Back into all that jazz, and an amends

I've been missing in action for a couple/three years as one of our grown sons was diagnosed with lymphoma, which we fought unsuccessfully until almost two years ago.
Shortly after he passed (April 18, 2008) my wife was diagnosed with lung cancer.

So though I was not totally inactive on the web I did manage to slip away from this stellar site.

I also curtailed all gigging activities; retired from one career; worked another job for awhile, then eventually decided I was done working altogether as my wife needed caretaking during chemo/radiation (she is now in remission - yay!). At some point I sold my X-150 after retirement and just kept a Tele around (after a brief fling with a Gretsch or two).

Since her slow comeback from treatment and subsequent return to life, if not normalcy, I began taking some gigs, mostly substituting as a sideman in jazz combos for other guitarists on vacation or double booked, as well as a couple of classic Soul gigs, a bit of studio demo work, and some bar-band dance music jobs once in a great while.

This Spring has seen me become officially "active" again, since some old working musician friends have invited me to join them, and front, "The Castaways" (we've all been fired or quit from a particular local bandleader's dilettantism).

So next Friday night 6-8PM we play the local Kuumbwa jazz club, <http://www.kuumbwajazz.org/index.php> which is on the National "circuit," as background jazz for a local Democratic fundraiser ($75/person).

Then our next slated gig is May 7 (another Fri nite) at Gazos Grill, which is a restaurant/bar up the coast road from here in Santa Cruz (yeah, we'll probably include "At Last" on the set list for that job too)!

So amends to all for being MIA so long.

I haven't been entirely inactive. Here's a clip of me playing "Take Five" last Fall in Donner, CA at a lodge where I was invited to teach a mini-seminar on improvisation to a roomful of Gretsch aficionados:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o83caP-EO0

BTW, I recently acquired a '05 Savoy X-150D (blonde flame maple), but am still playing through a venerable Tech 21 TM 60 that looks like hell but works (with a couple of tricks to keep it connected to itself).

I'll be here all week. Try the veal! :wink:

`Wow...rough journey for you.....glad you're wife is on the mend, and you are playing again....welcome back, and share a few of our stories with you're wife..at least you'll have our good wishes, and some times a laugh is good for the soul, and we laugh a lot around here...take care, I've said before, the smartest thing I've ever heard a Doctor say is 'The biggest health problem in the world today is hardening of the attitudes.'.... :wink: Steffan

Tks Steffan,

Yeah I try to stay in the present moment. I love music and playing guitar more than ever. It's quite possible I could release endorphins and get into my right brain just by wiggling my fingers on my fretting hand, at this point in my life! 8)

I've seen some of your posts over on the GDP. Very glad that your wife's doing better! Take 5 sounded great, as well.

Nice to see you back on the board. Take very good care of your girl, and bend all your emotional energy to beating that cancer. I'll be thinking of you.

I've been suggesting to my friends that they examine very closely and in very fine detail each of the wrinkles around the knuckle on the pinky finger on their partner's left hand -examine and admire and love - like the song says, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Nice work on Take Five.

Insert "bustline" and I'm already there!

john_kidder said:

...examine very closely and in very fine detail each of the wrinkles around the knuckle on the pinky finger on their partner's left hand -examine and admire and love - like the song says, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Nice work on Take Five.

Click to expand...

Thanks.

Oh yeah, after 33 years I now know Love is a choice, not a Hollywood commodity they dispense just because you think you hear a string section playing somewhere...