Spotlight on Otis Redding, now,
Singin' Fa-fa-fa-fa-fah-fah-fah!

What a gas! I used to "tune up" with horn section, scatting in harmony and unison with them, and learned to think about my voice more as an intrument than I ever had before.

I hate to be smug about my adopted hometown, but I truly bellieve that a public-school PTA band with that many trained and talented musicians was definitely an only-in-New-Orleans phenomenon. Only one member, the tenor saxophone, was a true "ringer," a professional musician. Everyone else had some other kind of day job. Among the most impressive: the pianist was a surgeon and faculty member at the med school, and the trombone player had to quit after he completed his night-school MBA and went to work as a "road warrior" for one of the Big Eight accounting/consulting firms.