I can hardly believe this is happening. After nearly a year of kicking around ideas about a Cabrillo College alumni band made of musicians of a certain age, honoring Lile Cruse, our band director back at the founding of the band in the seventies, we are actually doing it. "It" will be at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, in just a couple days.
I hate the poster. Why did I not step forward and volunteer my graphic design skills?
Lile looks like Herbert L. Clarke in the photo. Also, several of our number won't be there, but I suppose that's the way it goes. But we will have a full band of eager players, the promise of at least one full house, some great charts to run, and camaraderie that will have withstood our decades apart.
Here's the truth: Lile rounded up, in every sense of the word, a motley group of hippies and hardened Vietnam vets and gave us the authority to have a little fun with music, something I personally needed at the time. When he recruited me he didn't even give me time to think about it. Next I knew I was sitting next to an impossibly young Paul Contos. Now it's nearly 40 years later, and it's amazing how central music is to the lives of the guys (and gal!) who will make up the band on October 1.
Real heroes include Danny, who beat the drum mercilessly in the local press, Matt, who flew in all the way from Barcelona for this, Rich, Billy and Brad, all of whom turned down the kind of gigs musicians ought not turn down to free up a rehearsal day on Friday and the gigging day, Saturday.
Folks start arriving tomorrow, and I can hardly wait.
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