It was a good show. You can tell that Doc Severinsen really enjoys what he’s doing.
Most of the music was supplied by a 17 piece band that tours with him. A year or two ago he was visiting a college and played with this band. Apparently he visits high schools and colleges on a regular basis. Anyway, after the concert was over he asked if the band ever went out on tour. Apparently no one had ever asked that question. He signed them up and has been touring with them for the past year. So it makes for an interesting contrast, Doc who is 89 and a group of college age kids.
They mostly played big band music. And rather mellow big band music. Which makes sense as the audience definitely skewed toward the elderly. Our group of four ranged in age from late fifties to early sixties and I felt we stuck out for being so young. And it looked like the venue was 75-80% filled; a good turnout for a small town in Ohio. It was interesting that he had long-time friends from the area in the audience who he visits when he is in town.
The band was very good as was the woman who sang half a dozen songs. Doc didn’t play as much as I would have liked, but he explained he had a horse riding accident several days earlier and injured his lip. He said his head was going down and the horse’s head came up and BANG. He brought in another trumpet player to assist him, but he played a number of songs himself. It was impressive.
In between some of the songs he reminisced about some of the musicians he knew throughout his career. He told a few stories. And of course, he mentioned Johnny, Ed and Tommy. He choked up a little bit when he introduced several songs that Tommy Newsome had done the arrangements for.
And of course, the clothes. He started the concert wearing lime green pants, a dark purple shirt and a blue and gray sequined jacket. After the intermission he came out wearing red pants, a black shirt and a red jacket with black sequined patterns on it.
He put on a decent show and it was certainly enjoyable seeing someone from a bygone era. And it was fun watching an 89 year old man enjoying himself playing the trumpet, conducting a band and entertaining the crowd with such energy.