OK Fran. For all both of you who may be interested:
This was my first dinner meeting with the Solo Musicians Network group. I had worked with and/or for some of the people in the room and was a guest of singer “A” Marchese, whom, I have had the pleasure working with several times recently and whom, I believe worked with Uncle Dave in the past or at least worked the same room. I must say it was a thrill for me to meet, face to face with Fran Carango who, by the way is a super nice person, and his pretty and saintly wife Kathleen; and the Uncle Dave that I had admired after seeing him at the Crab Trap for several years and reading his posts on this forum. I was thoroughly impressed with the musicianship of everyone in the room. There were about 40-50 musicians some in their mid 80’s and still working. Before, during and after dinner, most everyone took a turn either singing or at the keyboard. During the introductions, several of the people admitted to being ex-accordion players (including Fran) which made me feel that I had a little something in common with some of the members. After dinner, Giorgio Di Giunio treated us to a couple of numbers on his 5 string violin accompanied by a Midjay. He arrived from Italy about 3 months ago and stopped into the little Italian restaurant where I play and sat in with me for a couple of numbers and blew the patrons away with his playing. I took him to see the Budesa Brothers and he sat in and impressed them and has done a couple of jazz gigs with them in the Phila. area. Just before I left, a young lady, Katt I believe is her name, strapped on an accordion and played some Klezmer music. It looked like a late night jam session was forming and I was sorry I had to leave, but I had a couple of red wines and a long drive home.
Did I miss anything Fran, except for the fact that not only were these people fine musicians, almost all of them would make great comedians?
Ciao,
Jerry