Last week, I was in Northwestern Wisconsin teaching at Shell Lake Arts Center, a one-week Jazz Camp. The camp is open to kids of all levels, and we certainly saw that in the trumpet students. They ranged in age from 11-17.

Lennie Foy and I were the trumpet faculty. Working with Lennie is always a pleasure. We've played in the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra for the past several years, and also on big bands and recording sessions in Indianapolis. During the week, we also found some time to sit down and do some playing, which was great.

Working with the kids was terrific. They worked hard and made some real improvement over the one week. It's amazing how much can get done in such a short time.

One of the interesting traditions of the Shell Lake camp is the Table Tennis Tournament. Luke Gillespie is what makes this interesting. For those of you who don't know Luke, he's the Jazz Piano teacher at IU. He's also a terrific Table Tennis player. Each camp, the students have a tournament, with the winner getting a chance to play Luke. Luke has offered one of his CD's for free to anyone who beats him. In the many years this has been going on, he still hasn't had to give one away.

Needless to say, I needed to see this. I arrived just in time to catch the finals of the student tournament. As soon as the students finished, Luke was ready to go.


He made quick work of his opponent.


After winning, he took on one of the counselors-Kenny. Kenny has good power and is even better at trash talking.

But Luke has a serious game, and put Kenny away. Here's Luke and Kenny after the match. It's not hard to figure out who won.




This week I'm back at IU playing in the Festival Orchestra, which has guests and faculty sitting in the sections with students. We're playing Bartok's "Miraculous Mandarin" Suite, Rachmaninoff's "Symphony No. 3" and Stravinsky's "4 Norwegian Moods". If you're nearby, come out and hear the concert Thursday night.

On October 8, I spent the day as the guest soloist with the Marching Hundred, IU's marching band, for the Homecoming game against Illinois. The day started at 7:30 am with a run through at the stadium. The band gave me a break while they continued to rehearse. Next Hundred played 'The Walk to the Rock', the football team's new tradition of entering the stadium.

After 'The Walk', we put on a show outside the stadium. My portion of this was the Maynard Medley. Then we had a short break before heading into the stadium for pre-game.

What's cooler than being on the Jumbotron? Nothing.

Half-time went great. The band sounded terrific. The trumpets let me sit in with them in the second half. And IU won, 36-13. A great day all around.

Thanks to fellow faculty Ed Cord, Pat Harbison, and Michael Hoeltzel (visiting this year) for coming out.

Special thanks to Dave Woodley and Hundred for having me. I look forward to the next time.