Friday

This morning I played with a nice little pick-up brass band, parading in the Quarter to kick off the Tennessee Williams Festival. Led by Jack Fine, always a treat to play with, it was called "Stella's Dream Brass Band", though I didn't find that out until the end of the parade. There was lots of filming of us, but as the local media seems to be all Pope watch, I havn't seen any of it on tv. A Japanese station interviewed Jack.

The shoe repair guy on Oak Street seems to have done a great job putting new soles on my comfortable well broken in pair of Red Wing walking shoes. Yay, much more use from a rare pair of shoes that actually comfortably fit my extra wide feet.

The neighborhood camera & film shop, called "The Camera Shop", closed up. While the Walgreen's still does film developing, I take this as another indication that it is about time for me to go digital.

Saturday

My latest mass media spotting: You can see me in a photo on the back of section B of the Saturday Times-Picayune with the "Stella's Dream Brass Band".

I went over to the Freret Street Festival, which has grown into a nice event. It's a free street festival two main music stages plus one children's tent stage, with crafts and food booths along the street in between. My favorites: The Panorama Jazz Band, which was the smaller 6 piece version, but still kickin'. It was leader Ben Schenck who alerted me to my apperance in the Picayune. Genivive Duval is one of my favorite younger trombonists with her old low-register style. Alas another of my must-sees personal was playing at the same time, so I divided my time that set at Big Chief Monk Boudreaux's Red Black & Blue, an exciting new group. Miguel (from the Radio Ramblers) was on trumpet and vocals, and Rev. Goat has a funny rocking song pondering why Captain Kirk didn't have any native Americans on the Starship Enterprise. Later, Kermit Ruffin's set was marred by poor sound engeneering: the piano should not be over-powering the brass. I ran into a good number of friends, one of whom gave me a fortune cookie: "Your courage will bring you honor." Okay then.