Memphis Music Making

1/23 This life as a traveling musician sucks sometimes. Had to be up by 5 AM to hit the road from Baton Rouge to make a noon lunch in Memphis and a 1 PM band clinic at the U. of Memphis. Of course, lunchtime at Central BBQ on Central Ave. was a major motivating factor, and in the end, worth every bit of effort! Jack Cooper directs the jazz ensemble and let us sit in with the band while they rehearsed. They were going through of Jack’s original tunes “Her Moon Rises In The East” and discussing strategies for the design of a slow crescendo during an extended passage. It just had not hit me till now about what an athletic endeavor playing in a band requires. They had some nice players with big sound – some switching instruments to fill out the band – impressive.

1/24 Scott got up early this morning to do an arranging clinic at the U. for Gary Topper’s class while I enjoyed the room at the Artisan Hotel. Gig at the Memphis Club, Zanzabar. We had a wonderful evening at Keesha’s classy art gallery/club in old town Memphis, right on Main Street’s trolley line. She’s offering a wonderful menu too. Neat part of town, and a fantastically appreciative audience. Scott and trumpeter Dave Spencer met each other at Florida State. Sax man Gary Topper was one of the first musicians that Scott met while working in New York. One could tell that the three horn players were delighted to be playing together again. They played some of Dave and Gary’s original songs – Dave’s “Monday Morning” Pianist Chris Parker was sparking, and drummer Kim Trammel and bass player Sam Shoup filled out the rhythm section. Dave’s “Monday Morning” bossa tune was melodiously reflective, and Gary Topper’s closing tune, “Interplay” was a lighthearted entwining of horn lines. Students from the U. of Memphis jazz band ensemble were there and it was fun talking with them outside of the band clinic. Thanks Memphis, for a wonderful evening - we’ll be looking forward to returning as soon as possible!

Let’s talk about Dave Spencer for a minute… one of Scott’s closest friends during his Florida State days, Dave is a great trumpeter. Scott had always referred to Dave as the “Godfather of Seoul” Of course, I always heard that as “soul”, and didn’t understand until just now… Dave was principal trumpet with the Seoul philharmonic, and gained a reputation for R & B style arrangements which were new to the Korean culture….so they called him the godfather of Seoul… Dave’s a magnificent cook too, and hosted us in his elegant loft digs in Memphis Heights. What a view!

1/25 This life as a traveling musician is brilliant sometimes, in details that would matter to no one but us. Set the scene.... Water everywhere on I-40 westward just over the Mississippi. No wonder they call this delta land. Birdwatching heaven. A lot of over-filled trucks and trailers. Looks like they’re moving west. A bleary-eyed stop at a Waffle House for quick breakfast. As the grits are waking us up, patrons are comfortably jokin' & joshin' employees in ways we've not heard at other food stops (feels like home...) we listen to RB songs we've heard forever. On "My Baby's Back In My Arms Again", I hear something new. Bass clarinet??!! Is this a new mix on this tune? I keep it to myself for a minute, and then ask Scott if he had ever heard that bass clarinet in that place in that arrangement too? You heard that too?!! We figure someone in this Waffle House has tweaked the bass, but laugh about the musician in the session - his little bit finally came through. Audiophile bliss. There are few I could travel with that this would have any meaning to at all. We're on the right track.

Baton Rouge routes

1/21 The road to Red Stick. Long drive from St. Louis to Baton Rouge... Frozen water fall flows squeezed out of the layered rock formations on either side of the highway as we headed south, wishing our temperature gauge would rise as fast as our driving. A Boiling Point restaurant below Memphis provided our first taste of really good jumbalaya, and three kinds of cooked oysters, Rockefeller, Bienville, and St. Charles style. Biggest oysters I’ve ever seen. Chased them with a cup of the hottest gumbo we’ve ever eaten. Names like Bogue Chitto and Tickfaw kept us entertained during the constant rain.

1/22 Baton Rouge. A long way to go for no gigs, but dear friends are worthwhile to connect with no matter how far. I wanted to see my long-time musical mentor and instigator of inspiration, Jim Coday. I met him during an audition in junior high school when I was determined to get into his extra-curricular singing group called the “Choraliers” which had put on a spring “Broadway In Revue” show that I’d seen and flipped over. I sang with his high school groups at Blair High School in Pasadena, and with his “Vanity Fair” performing group. We went out to lunch at the French Market Bistro – excrellent! Jim is hale and hearty and thoughtful and as funny as ever. Just as ever, I’m trying to cajole him into taking a trip back to LA to visit many of his students over the years who still keep him close in their hearts. Some have even started a Jim Coday Foundation for the Arts group that funds efforts to enhance musical education in Pasadena.

Another dear friend and colleague of Scott’s, Jeannie Little, teaches trombone at Louisiana State. We attended a concert of their faculty brass quintet. They were adventurous and the evening’s repertoire included a Charles Ives piece and an original piece by another percussion faculty colleague. Later, Jeannie introduced us to a local brewhouse’s etoufee, a southern specialty made with crawdads. Yum!

Cookie's Jazz And More, St. Louis

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1/20 The spirit of St. Louis is alive and well and generous and effusive and friendly and...! Wayne Coniglio and Elsie Parker welcomed us into their home with our first home cooked meal. Cheers to chef Wayne – although he’s a trombone buddy of Scott since their New York City days, he also played bass for our gig at Cookie’s. Elsie is a very accomplished woodwind player and chanteuse of all songs French. Her repertoire is impressive and it was fun to spend time sharing music and a plunge in their local Richmond Heights family recreation center. The pool was refreshing with a huge slide and I went up and down it like a crazed kid, streamlining for speed. Here's a picture of me and Elsie in the middle, and Carolbeth True, who played piano on the Cookie's St. Louis gig.




Cookie’s Jazz! We had a great gig in beautiful Cookie’s jazz club in a charming suburb of St. Louis called Webster Groves.

The impressive Carolbeth True played piano, Kevin Giannino (right) played drums, and as mentioned, Wayne Coniglio (left) played bass. What a groove! Tunes felt great and the audience was receptive. We had some Jackie and Roy fans who liked what we were singing, and I visited with an old friend from Girl Scout daze, Jeannie (Skipper) Rowe. We would have been her guests on the Springfield, MO leg of our journey prior to St. Louis, except that the ice storm had knocked out the power to her entire county.

Halfway through the gig the snow started falling in huge beautiful petals. Trains would slide silently by a few times that evening, seen by the band thru the back window, but unseen by the audience facing the stage, and totally inaudible. A very interesting juxtaposition…

My friend Jeanne Rowe, from my Girl Scout summer days and her daughter Katie were there.



Many thanks to Cookie and Harold Whitfield for inviting us to make their hip and classy club our home in St. Louis. We are very fortunate that Scott has such warm and supportive “cuzzins”, and we hope to return as soon as possible.

UNO to OSU to Springfield, MO

1/16 Drive from Des Moines to Omaha, and the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Roads are clear but it was about 12 degrees. Beautiful snow covered stubbled fields edged with milkweed pods sporting a mouthful of snow each. Scott had a workshop with the brass students (including a few curious woodwind players…), and Ginger listened to the new jazz vocal ensemble and worked with the singers.






We shared a great dinner with the vocal jazz ensemble director, Kim Weiser, Pete Madsen, professor of trombone and director of jazz studies, and the marvelous faculty group that played with us later that evening. Andy Hall, bassist, Carlos Figueroa, drummer, pianist Mark Misfeldt, and Darren Pettit, saxes gave us marvelous support during the concert. It was especially fun to see workshop students again in another context, and answer further questions about the music and performing.





1/17 Oklahoma State University, Stillwater for a clinic with trombonist Paul Compton’s jazz students. Drove all day through Missouri, and a pretty desolate Kansas. Roads started getting a little slushy/gooey in Oklahoma. Seems municipalities down south don’t have the snow moving equipment for occasional storms like this. It had warmed up to about freezing when we arrived. We sang a few tunes with pianist Todd Malicoate, bassist Charles Peterson, and drummer Pat Bubert, and then went into a freewheeling Q&A about the life of musicians and our choices as jazz artists. The trombone ensemble of students brought out a fun little arrangement of an original tune in honor of Scott’s visit by bass trombonist Noel Seals. Cool tune! Scott is still moaning about sight reading without glasses… We really liked it…called “A Lil’ Payne County Funk”. Noel Seals is the bass trombonist in the gold shirt.








1/18 Free day on our way to St. Louis! Eve in Joplin. Every bit of vegetation is encased in ice. Fairyland.

1/19 Springfield, MO is clearly about ground zero for this ice storm. Hills and dales of whitened forests become more and more dense with heavily frosted bowed boughs. The entire tops of some tree groupings are snapped. My friend Jeanne Rowe (of Springfield) said that the sound of cracking branches was pretty loud and terrifying (she lives out in the woods near a river). Apparently the entire county is without electricity. Moving eastward to Rolla, much of the hoarfrost had melted.

Des Moines Big Band: Hot Band, Cold Land

1/15 Ginger and Scott with Des Moines Big Band at Adventureland in Altoona. We arrived on the last snow flurries of a minus 2 degree day. This is forehead freezing cold. However, the band was as hot as the day was cold. Jim Oatts, trumpeter (on the right in our trio pic), leads this band that’s been playing together in the Des Moines area for nearly 50 years.


They played a number of very interesting charts, including a “Moonlight in Vermont” that tenor Wayne Gage soloed on beautifully. We had the good fortune to hear a little known Thad Jones tune called “Let’s”. Sax man Steve O’Brien was featured on multiple instruments, and they brought Scott up to join them on an arrangement of “Beautiful Love” that another trombone player, Paul McKee arranged. I had the pleasure of performing Bob Florence’s beautiful arrangement of “We’ll Be Together Again” for the first time, and that is certainly a sentiment I will carry with me until our return visit to play with the Des Moines Big Band!

Into The Ice Storm

1/13 Packed up Sat. afternoon, after moaning with hosts Dean and Elizabeth that morning about having to leave them. Bid them a fond fare-thee-well and headed into the ice storm. It started raining before we left, and we made it to Du Bois, PA by 1 AM.

1/14 Spent all day driving in various stages of rain and falling temperature. By nightfall, however, it was below freezing and the roads were starting to clod up with snow clumps on the road and no plows in sight. We made it to Davenport, IA through a couple of inches and fairly fat flakes that at travel speeds made it seem a blinding snowstorm. Davenport is the birthplace of jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke, with whom Scott shares a birthday. The Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society holds an annual tribute festival to Bix every July. Naturally Scott wanted to hit town and find his grave…not in this whiteout.

The Casa Loma Inn that we found felt like home, with high ceiling log cabin feel and a sitting room upstairs. When they offered to print entire 17 piece big band charts for Scott, they topped our list of hospitality houses. Late that night we shuffled powder snow as we crossed the road to the 24 hr. diner across the way, using an umbrella to shield us from the storm. (I’ve lived in snow, and I’ve never used an umbrella in the snow…) LA ice storm rookies...

Savoring The Apple

1/12 Spent till mid-day at the IAJE convention. Greetings to our new friends in Scandinavia and Hilton Head, SC. We’ll see you there when we come to town!

Ok here’s the Birdland story…. Can you imagine – thrill of trills in a cab?!! Scott learned through a phone call from a friend that they couldn’t come to see us at Birdland because it was SOLD OUT. Whoopdedoo! When we walked in the “back door” into the club area itself, Scott mentioned that he was “home”. For me, this was a dream come true – perfect sized club with a very friendly and “international family-style” staff. We arrived early enough to go through some programming notes with Tommy Igoe, the Friday Night Big Band’s drummer and leader (first picture backstage w/ Scott). Scott recognized some of the audience regulars from a few years ago, and had a ball reconnecting with beloved band mates.

The band blazed and the audience was enthralled with every punch and hit. Sounds like a boxing match – in a way, harmonically, it is. A KO, so to speak, is the aim of a song’s arranger and the entire band is the instrument they get to work through. This band is wonderful! These are some of the best musicians in town, and it shows in the dynamic detail and nuance that they bring to reading each chart. Tommy picked some great repertoire, and he also has a really nice announcing style and rapport with the audience. Stepping off the stage to hands outstretched in congrats and murmurs of “good job…sound great…” This meant all the more to me, since some of these jazz fans had heard the duo of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral. The sound system was great, and singing with Scott and this band was a thrill of a lifetime for me.

A number of people in the audience asked me if my last name was Birdland. Funny they should ask… Berglund is an unusual name and is never pronounced correctly in the U.S. Sven Nyquist (Ingmar Berman’s cinematographer) taught me on the set of the “Postman Always Rings Twice” that the correct pronunciation of my name was Berry Loon. The first time I ever saw my name in print – in a 7th grade gymnastics competition listing – it was noted as Ginger Birdland. Little did I know…

I’m going to post pictures on my website, although I won’t be able to caption any. Regrets, you’ll just have to try to match them up. The first for Birdland will be of Scott and Tommy Igoe conferring in the back room over tunes and tempos before the set. I got pics of each section (saxes, bones, trumpets), and three of the bone players together, Mike Boschen, Scott, and Dale Turk.