Trombones and Life Savers

Brimfield Antiques Show, Brimfield Massachusetts

Back in the day, I managed a New Orleans style brass band. The leader of the band was, um, pathologically disorganized (among many other diagnoses). New Orleans type brass bands are supposed to be big and messy and fun and spontaneous...but he took the description to a whole new level. Normally the band was made up of a couple of drummers, trombones, tubas, trumpets, a couple of sax players, etc. We had a lot of experienced musicians to call upon and the band was never comprised of the same people twice in the entire time I worked with them....always a source of anxiety for yours truly who likes to live in a world where her ducks (and brass band musicians) stay neatly in rows.

I had booked us at a nice paying corporate gig as a 9 piece band. I should have known things were worse than usual when the band leader was on the phone trying to recruit players as we were driving to the gig.

We ended up with 2 drummers and 7 trombone players.

My life saver was when the crowd started downing the free hurricane cocktails. Before the end of the night the crowd was in love with the band.