Specifically, the small band we set up around me and Tennessee was canned from Hoffman's for no real reason that was ever enumerated to me. Mind you this was a FREE gig, one we'd been doing for a year.
Lucky for me, the NFSO's personnel has been remarkably stable, once we case off a certain tenor player who could play his ass off, but who could neither read his watch nor a calendar.
The high point for me in this time period was the charity event we played at the Cocoanut Grove in April. Sure, the band's pay came largely from the band itself, me included. But the Grove is a remarkable venue for big bands, the genre of music for which the room was designed. You don't have to mic soloists, just light mics on the vocals.
I've played other events at the Cocoanut Grove, but they were all amplified too much.
My daughter was kind enough to come down and shoot video of the band from the horseshoe balcony, and these YouTube videos are the result. (Caitlin's dad did the editing. A bandleader's work is never done.)
Every second Friday (and fifth Friday, should the month have one) has been Bocci's for us all year. The attendance has been up and down, especially in the just-ended summer, when 8,000 people attended the free concerts held at the same tine at the Boardwalk.
