I was invited by a friend and fellow musician to join a practice of a Big Band in Peabody. They usually meet every Thursday from 9:30am-11:30am for a line dancing community event at the Peabody Senior Center with 60-100 people in attendance. Of course, those dances were cancelled during the pandemic, but they are coming back in July, so the band was gathering this morning to practice for the first time in over a year. Their former bari sax player unfortunately passed away last summer, so they were looking for a replacement. I attended the practice, enjoyed the music, (played decently well for sight reading the charts for the first time) and have been asked to join the band for when the dances come back next month, and I am absolutely delighted.
The group is all men (mostly over the age of 60), so I am definitely an outlier as a woman in her 30s, but I never let age or gender get in my way! The music is a wide variety of big band charts (think "In The Mood", "Shiny Stockings", "Sweet Georgia Brown") mixed in with polka, patriotic, and all kinds of other tunes. I love playing bari in a big band; the parts are all fairly easy and sound awesome in the sax section. I am so thankful that I no longer have a full time job so I can partake in these opportunities. While I was there, I was asked to join the Rockport Legion Band, which rehearses on Thursdays and will perform outdoors a few Sundays this summer, and I'm super excited about that opportunity as well. I am about to be playing music almost 5 times a week!
Mondays: Gloucester Community Band
every other Tuesday: Ipswich Community Band
every other Wednesday: Reset Button (my 6 piece brass band)
Thursday mornings: Peabody Big Band
Thursday evenings: Rockport Legion Band
Yay for music coming back, and being connected to these great musicians who offer me these delightful opportunities.
With delight,
♥Jamie
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