If I Were A Bell

I wrote this chart for the Telluride Jazz Festival and Camp. We played it a few times, and the band always had trouble with it. The guys said I sucked, the chart sucked, it "didn't hang together" (a quote from my good friend Dave Turner :-)

Then my dear departed friend Frank Mantooth needed a chart for an album project called "Remember" he was doing with Art Farmer and a band in Vienna, and asked if he could buy it from me. He changed a few of the voicings, and gave me a really good arranging lesson. The band in Vienna loved it, it became the 1st chart on the CD!

Here we are in Telluride, after the evening concert. We were still relatively sober at this point. I don't remember much after this picture was taken. From left, Willie Hill, Jerry Noonan and wife (I think she was a future wife at that point), Art Bouton and yours truly. Doing what we do best!

This is when I discovered I was a real throwback - I would rather write a chart like Neal Hefti or early Thad Jones (in the basie style) than some hot shot college big band crap. It led to "Good To Me", which was my best (and last :-) big band chart.

Oh, yes, the band at Telluride, with some notable exeptions (like Frank, Ed Soph, Bill Prince, Willie Hill, Jerry Noonan, Henry Wolking, Art Bouton and Dave Glenn) sucked, and couldn't read the menu at McDonald's if their life depended on it. Hope you guys are well! :-)