First Solo

It was 1965, 10:00 AM in the morning, in my elementary school gymnasium. The whole school, grades K-6, were invited to hear some of the students play solos. My solo was an arrangement of "The Saints Go Marching In," for trombone and piano. I was all ready!

I walked out onto the floor and looked at all the kids. There seemed to be a real lot of them! So, I started playing and it seemed to be going pretty well, when all of a sudden, I went out to sixth position and the slide made direct contact with the music stand! Bang! The stand fell to the floor. The music flew all over the place. Kids were laughing! But I was running after the music, still trying to play the solo, reading the pages of the music from their new found positions, on the floor.

Afterwards, even though the kids were laughing, and I was quite embarassed, I got a good round of applause and a special congratulations from my band director, as he said, "That's the way to go after it!"