We played a concert last night for about 400 folks at the local high school. Our music was fine, great tempos and energetic performance, but the audience just didn’t seem to respond like previous audiences had done: laughing at the right jokes, applauding the choice of songs and composers.

It got to the point where when Steve asks, “Who would you guess is the most successful American composer?” … there was dead silence from the crowd. You could hear the crickets... not one mention of Irving Berlin or Jerome Kern. (The right answer is Richard Rogers, by the way) Yet at the end of the show they gave us a rousing, standing ovation!

Go figure. They also invited us as a group to attend a reception afterwards where there was food, wine and of course, the very same crowd. They turned out to be extremely appreciative and quite nice folks, and we all had the chance to interact with them. Kind of an interesting evening.

Amusements on the road: TV, books, newspapers, conversation, jokes, laptop computer, e-mail, this blog, practicing (yup, practicing), cell phone calls back home, cell phone calls to the back of the bus, DVD’s, listening to and swapping CD's, walking, swimming, eating, sleeping, doing laundry.

A few random photos attached: the Dan River, Danville VA.


Nicole, Bob and Vito, loading the bus on a chilly morning.

Ace trombonist Mike Fahn, um… practicing backstage, er… wearing…?