B.  Live! at the Starlite Ball; 1975—about a year and a half after the NRC gig = a world of difference!  We now are transcribing charts exactly note-for-note and we have all the correct instrumentation—a truly authentic Classic Jazz Orchestra.

The Starlite Ball was, in reality, a private party thrown by some students at the Minneapolis School of Art and Design.  These students were renting an old mansion near the school and knew about us because we’d done a couple of gigs at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (parent institution of the school).

I love the ambience of the mostly-inebriated audience and the interplay in the band = everybody’s quite loose and having a good time.  The band is well-rehearsed and in fine form.

Special Note:  Mark Bryn (piano) knew that Mark Bruner (Hashhead) couldn’t play the “Some Of These Days” trumpet solo in the upper register (where it should be), so when the solo came up Bryn grabbed a curved soprano sax (that he had at the ready) and played the solo note-for-note exact in the correct register, perfectly mirroring Hashy’s lower-range solo—it’s stuff like this that made the band truly Special!