Friday 09/30/2022
Music didn’t start until 1pm so I had a lazy morning in my motel room, mostly reading. About 12 Jan and I walked around the corner to Katrina’s restaurant, a quite nice family kind of a place, for lunch. Then we took the car to the community center for the opening acts, as the free shuttle didn’t start running until 3pm.
Opening act, Cornet Chop Suey, was entertaining. Here’s a brief clip.
We drove to a different venue, the Veteran’s Memorial building, a 1932 structure recently renovated in spiffy 1932 art-deco style. We heard Clint Baker’s Jazz Band, a really sharp talented group with great musicianship. Unfortunately the auditorium in the Vet’s building had been restored with hard plaster walls and ceilings and the acoustics were very bright and echo-ey, not pleasant.
So we headed on to another venue, the Morris Art Gallery, another 1930s era building but with some interesting art exhibits that I got a brief look at. One room was a showing of works by Kay Harden, who does nature scenes using tiny little pens to make zillions of marks in ink on canvas. I really liked her stuff and who knows, someday I might buy a piece. Anyway the music here was Brian Holland and Danny Coots, who I went to see at a house concert just a couple months back. They also are really good.
It was now 5:30 and I noticed Jan looked a little bothered — turned out he had a headache — so we headed back for an hour’s break at the hotel. We rejoined for a quick supper at 6:30 and then got the hotel limo to drive us down to the community center for a great set by a group I’ve been following for more than a decade, Tom Rigney and Flambeau. They rocked out on their standard numbers and ended getting a well-deserved standing O from a large crowd. Here’s 5 seconds of them heading into “Orange Blossom Special”.
Yeah, I didn’t feel right recording any more. Look ’em up on youtube.
Tomorrow is a fuller day. However, we have decided to head home on Sunday. I’ve gone back and forth on this. To get home in reasonable time we need to start by, say, 10am, which would mean seeing none of the Sunday acts. Or staying the whole day and another night so as to have Monday for travel. OK, we have decided there’s nothing Sunday to keep us here. But tomorrow we will get pretty much a full day of music.
Codgerville 