Another Exciting Weekend for Jack

This past weekend was pretty nice, with a great ragtime-esque concert, swing dance and a day off what could be better? I drove the 45 minutes home Friday night and attended a concert for hurricane relief. It was a group from New Orleans with a clarinet, trumpet, guitar, sousaphone /valve trombone, and trap set. They are called "Doreen's Jazz New Orleans" and were probably the "funnest" jazz group I've seen. Doreen is the leader on clarinet with an amazing sound that rivals the old-school big band guys like Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, and maybe even Artie Shaw. All in all, a great time. Anyway, Doreen and her husband (the sousaphone player) lost their home to Katrina and are traveling around the country putting on concerts to raise funds to rebuild their house. Pretty cool.

Then, Saturday night was the Black Student Alliance Swing Dance. It was a fun time even if there were maybe 10 people there who weren't either associated with the Jazz bands or the BSA. Oh well, I got to dance with Amy. After I was done playing, the gang and I stuck around for a few Jazz I tunes, then hung out at Perkin's for awhile. The night was capped off with a showing of "A Mighty Wind," with me falling asleep during parts of it.

Finally, you have probably noticed a slight change to my bloerg. The charts show an inside look at my musical tastes. Mr. Brandon Van Westen introduced me to this useful in a useless kind of way website: last.fm. If you are interested, let me know and I'll try to tell you about it or direct you to more knowledgeable sources.