Jazz band (1960)
Musically, many of us were shaped by The Voice of America's History Of Jazz series delivered nightly under our pillows by a single army surplus earphone fed miraculously by a crystal receiver. The trumpet of King Oliver did not need amplification; the humid foggy air above the Mississippi River had the same effect. Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, and finally Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond were indelible stations along the way of our jazz education. It was quite unusual for a class of only thirty pupils to bring forth all six musicians traditionally required by a Dixieland band. Hitherto such bands would have taken their resources from several grades in school. Being all six in the same class, benefited us greatly with regards to practice sessions. Near the end of the school year, during a six-week student exchange program arranged with the Lycée Saint Louis de Gonzague on Rue Franklin in Paris XVIe, we got our long-robed French Jesuit teachers tapping their feet to our beat. It was an uneven exchange. While our French counterparts stationed in Austria at our boarding school complained about the lousy kitchen, we were literally dined and wined in the posh homes of their invariably wealthy parents. We played at and jammed with Maxim Saury at the Caveau de la Huchette (which is still hopping today, sixty years later). In Vienna, we participated at jazz festivals and at the carnival. The sad part was our need to make concessions when playing for money. Conventional, often schmaltzy dance music was required at firemen's balls, in country taverns and at the Conservative Party student clubs.

Sail Along Silv'ry Moon!