IN THE MOOD

While Mom is out visiting, we’re trying to do a few things to get her out of the house.  This past Saturday, we came up with a beaut.  As some may recall, Mom (almost 91 now) is a proud WWII vet of the Waves, and was in her late teens and early twenties through the ‘40s, so the music of that era his “her” music.  I grew up with a couple of “big band” LPs in the house, so I like the music a lot as well.  Using Goldstar, I got some reduced-price tickets (still $$$) which turned out to be great seats:  3rd row center. The performers were virtually on top of us, so it made for great viewing for us all.  This performance was at Cal State Northridge’s performing arts center, a quite nice hall that we’d be happy to go back to for future productions.  As you can see by the picture, we got here early to avoid the mob scene.  By showtime, the hall was full.  While they were outside waiting for me to come back from parking, Mom eyed the crowd filing in and told Loni:  “See, I told you it would be a bunch of old people!”  Well, Ma, duh.  It might have been geriatric, but the crowd was enthusiastic.

This show has been touring for twenty years(!)  Some of the musicians, as well as the band leader, would appear to have been around the whole time.  But they had chops!  The band is called “String Of Pearls” after the 1941 Glen Miller song, and consisted of four woodwinds (alternating sax’s and clarinets), three trombones, three trumpets, a standup bass, drums, and the leader on the grand piano, fronted by six singer-dancers.  The show lasted about 2 1/2 hours, including an intermission, and we got plenty of music for our money.  Unfortunately, they didn’t permit photography of any sort, and given our front-of-house seats, I couldn’t sneak any shots, so the below is a collage of shots from the web, but same as we saw.

Towards the end of the set, they did a number of WWII songs like “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and honored the vets in the audience by having them stand up as the band played each service branch’s song.  When “Anchors Aweigh” started up, good old Mom hoisted herself out of her seat!  I suspect she might have been the oldest vet there.  So, if swing is your thing, check out the schedule for In The Mood.