Phil's friend Anton did something beautiful. He asked a friend of his to take some of the band on a cruise around the islands on a 49-foot boat (with a satellite tracking system) that sleeps eight–and the remainder of the band on a smaller, faster boat. Now, no one will blame the reader if this scenario conjures up visions of the scene in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where Jack Nicholson and the rest of the escapees from the mental institution steal the large fishing boat. No way! The band was quite well-behaved except for two verbalized questions: "Doesn't this thing go any faster?" and "Is this all we're going to do, just ride around?" A spirited joke-telling session was held in the main cabin between Phil, Bill Charlap, Steve, Jeff, and Anton. It was a real treat for the band; and Anton and his friends were warm, cordial, and wonderfully hospitable. "Survey says!!!"...hang rating: 10.

Carlos Santana was the headliner in town this evening; and while waiting for his ride to the performance, he sat in the lobby of the hotel, flashing the 1960s two-fingered peace sign for fans with cameras. That night at the jazz club in the hotel, Phil began Goodbye Mr. Evans with a gorgeous and artistically constructed cadenza. Midway through it, he was competing with some severe crowd noise. He stopped playing for a few seconds, leaned over to a microphone, and stated, "I can hear you. Can you hear me?"–and immediately continued. Makes you wonder why the talkers spent all that money to attend. Closed mouths and open ears might help. Why attend when you're going to get in the way of the presentation? Hang rating: 4.93.

Whenever Phil would call up Repetition, the alto tribunal of George, Jesse, and Phil would be featured soloists. Jesse, one of our accomplished COTA Cat alumni(COTALUM), in his mid-twenties, and a recent graduate of the University of Miami, always sounded quite seasoned, coming from a different direction than Phil and George (Lee Konitz, perhaps?)

The Testosterone Tour '98 continued by taking three planes and a three-hour bus ride. Not bad, only 13 1/2 hours of travel. The band flew from Molde to Oslo, then to Brussels. Going through the metal detector in Brussels, something upon or in my person activated the security alarm...again. The BOTB crowd was laughing at me...again. This time I was escorted by my new friend to a booth. He closed a curtain behind us and pulled out a large, long object that he rubbed most places, occasionally emitting a high pitch (the object emitted, that is). I was told to lift my arms, then one leg at a time (?!?!?!). Our encounter concluded, and I confidently pushed the curtain aside and reentered the world with a look of just being "checked" on my face. Any further description of this rendezvous doesn't belong in this publication.

The third plane of the day from Brussels to Rome wasn't a Sabena flight as our tickets indicated but was contracted out as a Virgin Express charter flight. Uh-oh! Economic? You bet! Comfortable? Not a chance! Two hours of squashed knees, a small, warm soft drink, and many, many screaming children. Thank you Sabena!!! What will you do with all the money you saved? Hang rating: —3.91.

Arrival at the Rome Airport was uneventful (though we would return several days later to pay our dues). We rode the bus 3 1/2 hours to Perugia, making for 13 1/2 hours of total travel time that day. We checked into the hotel and had 30 minutes to shower before leaving for the sound-check. Dinner was at 11:15 p.m. underneath the theater stage, and we hit at midnight.

Throughout the tour, the goal each day was to reach the vicinity of the performance with hopefully a little time to spare and cool out a bit; but even if time was tight, a feeling of relief seemed to come over the band upon arrival at the venue. No reference of what the band had gone through that day was mentioned. It was a done deal, and mental energy focused on the impending performance. The unspoken hope was that maybe tomorrow would be just a bit easier.

The 12-day Umbria Jazz Festival '98 had major corporate funding from Heineken and was in its twenty-fifth year. The concert was held in the lovely Teatro Pavone in the incredibly beautiful hilltop town of Perugia in Tuscany. Now this was a festival! Striking architecture, quaint coffeehouses, and lots of quality music. Phil and the band performed for an audience of 700 who paid $17; and the event was broadcast on RAI (Italian National TV and Radio). We ate before the concert, and the band loved the white lasagna. Could our taste have been influenced by the fact that we hadn't had a meal in 14 hours?

Once again, the well-meaning sound crew didn't understand much about acoustic-based jazz; and the monitor system was a nightmare. Bassist Steve Gilmore seemed to never give up, diplomatically pleading with the person on the monitor control board to re-balance the monitor mix on stage to reflect the acoustic nature of the ensemble. At the sound-check for a few concerts, the bass could be heard (and felt) in the next country.

Several nights, Phil asked the rhythm section to perform a featured selection. Each time they played a different piece; each time Bill Charlap, Steve, and Bill Goodwin delivered stunning works. This night was no exception as Bill Charlap started the trio feature with a prelude of Nessun Dorma! in this theater in Puccini's home country. Ah, so that's why Bill was going through this piece before the first concert back in Vienne, France! Many audience members could be seen mouthing the operatic lyrics from Act III of Turandot during Bill's performance, reflecting the wonderfully constructed melody and Bill's sensitive, expressive interpretation. Absolutely lovely! Outstanding jazz writer Ira Gitler attended this concert.

Another interesting musical characteristic of the tour was the several nights that the tenor saxophonists on the band, Tom Hamilton and Lew Del Gatto, followed each other on virtuosic, improvised solos during the same selection. They have very contrasting styles, yet they complement each other beautifully. Personality wise, they too are opposites: Tom would seemingly say a few words each week; but when he did, they were killers with such great timing and striking intelligence. Lew talks to anyone at any time and remains one of the most unassuming and kindest people I know. Just ask his good friend, the equally unassuming and kind Jim Buckley in the bari sax position. He, Jim Daniels, and I had the right side of the band sewn up, each of us "anchoring" our sections.

The band arrived back at the hotel at 2:40 a.m., and wake-up calls were set for 8:30 a.m.

The bus left at 10 a.m.; and we arrived at the hotel in Torino, Italy, at 6 p.m. At 9 p.m. representatives from the JVC Newport Jazz Festival Torino picked us up in Ford cars (Ford being one of the sponsors) and drove us to some park to have dinner before the performance. We locked several of our instruments in one of the cars and ate. After dinner, we rode across the city in the cars that didn't have the instruments, arriving at the Piazzetta Reale, a plaza surrounded by gorgeous architecture. There was only one problem...the car with several instruments (including mine) was still back at the park: the lovely person driving it for the evening had misplaced the keys. This incident also stranded three or four band members across town. Just as the lovely person gave permission to have the car window smashed with a rock so that the instruments could be accessed, someone arrived, having found her keys. Emotions ran the gamut from frustration to joy: only in Italy! Those of us already at the stage were ready to go on as the car finally arrived. Whew!

This solved problem totally overshadowed the weak wire music stands that the trumpet and rhythm sections had to work with...again. Paul Merrill and I spotted several unauthorized videographers; we informed Billy, and he got security and nixed several of them. But they seemed to be everywhere. Metropolitan Torino has 1.4 million residents. Six hundred people paid only $9 to hear the band close this eight-day event, as this festival had major corporate (JVC) and government sponsors.

The bus left at 10 a.m. from Torino, headed back east to Savona on the Mediterranean Sea, then traveled west along the Italian and French Rivieras, ending up two-thirds of the way across France in Toulouse. Our printed itinerary indicated a leisurely, eight-hour ride. I don't think so! However, the topography is killing! Incredible vistas exist every few minutes. Mountain villages on the right, seaside villages on the left...go through a tunnel beneath a mountain, over a bridge over a gorge with the sea on the left....

After three hours we stopped for lunch near the town of Ventimiglia, just before the French border, at what appeared to be a tiny truck stop. Good! We'll stop for 20 minutes and get a snack. Wrong again, oh trumpet-section-anchor! A tiny concrete box of a building with a bland facade was in actuality a really good Italian restaurant right off the highway. Home base! Phil said "Let's have lunch!" Five courses and 2 1/2 hours later, we were back on the bus passing Monte Carlo, Nice, and Cannes.

As the band entered its tenth hour of travel, the consensus was reached that we still had a way to go; so trombonist and BOTB aristocrat Kevin started a betting pool to guess the arrival time at the hotel. Fun, except he allowed tour director Billy in on it. Bad move! The man does this for a living! He has insider information! Of course, he won the pool. By the thirteenth hour the bus was quite loud as we reached the hotel close to 11 p.m.

Evening off.

The bus departed at 10 a.m.; and the printed itinerary indicated a three-hour ride to Bayonne, France. Would we manage to turn that into six hours? No, the trip took three hours as planned. Through the sound system on the bus, Steve Gilmore and Bill Charlap finally treated us to the recording of the singer "Bow Tie": an indescribable experience, other than that I think traditional holiday selections were the original intent. During the listening session there was a remarkable occurrence: finally, after over two weeks, the BOTB was stone-silent! No comments, no observations, no nothing. This is how remarkable (and drastic) this recording is. "Bow Tie" must be experienced to even attempt an explanation.

We arrived at the hotel in Bayonne and were elated to see Bill Dobbins (Evan's father), the accomplished pianist formerly of the Eastman School and now director of Germany's WDR Big Band. He had just finished performances in Spain and drove up to hear the PWBB at the ninth Jazz-aux-Remparts, a 6-day event with 24 sponsors held in 3 venues around town. We performed in a huge tent near the seventeenth-century fortification (rempart = rampart).

The concert was going very well; and halfway through, as the band prepared to perform Goodbye Mr. Evans, Phil's 1980 stunning memorial to the great pianist Bill Evans, Phil spoke French to the audience, discussing the passing a few days previous of important French tenor saxophonist Guy Lafitte. Phil dedicated this performance to Guy's memory, renamed the piece Au Revoir Monsieur Lafitte for this performance, and then proceeded to play the heck out of this miniature symphony. Six hundred people paid $27 to hear the band and a French jazz group.

We had two days off to relax and walk to town to do laundry and shop. George Robert is Swiss-French; so he could indoctrinate Steve Gilmore and me in the ways of French soap-dispensers in a local laundry. You put the francs in a coin slot on one wall and the soap is dispensed across the room at the opposite wall. Wow!!! We were amazed!

Upon returning to the hotel, someone told me that trumpeter and vocalist Clark Terry had arrived and was looking for me. At 78 years young, CT is one of the most important figures in the jazz history of the second half of the 20th century and has been guest soloist with our University Jazz Ensemble at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania in 1989, 1991, and 1999. I found him with Phil near the pool, and we exchanged affectionate greetings.

CT proceeded to tell me that less than 24 hours previous he had been the guest artist at the July Jazz Getaway workshop at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA (45 minutes southwest of the Gap), asking several musicians if they knew me and if I would be stopping by to say hello. They told CT that they knew me but hadn't heard from me recently. Several flights later he arrived at the same hotel that we were staying in, met Phil, and asked him who was in his big band. When Phil said that I was, Clark exclaimed that he was looking for me yesterday in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania but had to fly to France to get to visit with me!

CT asked me what trumpet part I was playing, and I told him fourth. He asked me why I was playing fourth and I told him because there were no fifth trumpet parts (or sixth trumpet parts). I described that I was playing "low-lead" trumpet in the band–because my fourth trumpet part often doubles the lead trumpet part down an octave (and you'd better play in tune with the lead player). Though the fourth part doesn't have the physical challenges of the lead part, Clark asked jokingly if I ever needed an assistant on the part. He and Phil then devised the term of "split fourth" trumpet player for me. It stuck; and for the rest of the tour, when George Robert would call my room, he would ask for "the well-known split fourth player." Our poolside discourse concluded with the proposal of a new category in the Down Beat magazine "Reader's Poll": Talent Deserving Wider Recognition: Split Fourth Trumpet Performer in a Big Band Setting.

It's a small world in the global jazz community, and Dr. Clark Terry is one of the biggest people in it: a huge heart, mega-artistic capabilities, and a sense of humor that never stops.

Walking into town along the river, we noticed discoloration flowing into the water from the riverbank about every 50 feet. You guessed it! Raw sewage and lots of it! The kicker is that the fish love it, and the locals know to drop their fishing line at these junctures. I believe I now know where the inspiration came from to name Bayonne, New Jersey.

That evening Phil and I went to hear our Easton, PA, neighbor, the formidable pianist Mulgrew Miller, perform with his trio at the cloister area of the magnificent 13th-century Bayonne cathedral: a passageway with a wall on one side and an open, grassy area on the other, all within the confines of the church property–a great place to listen to music. Before the concert we went inside and marveled at the several incredible, priceless, stained-glass windows. Phil's observation was, "At least they [the Church] did something beautiful with the money!"

Another day off in Bayonne. George Robert and I checked in on Clark several times in case he needed anything; later I helped him check his blood sugar (as he is diabetic) and get dressed for his performance. We went back to the tent for dinner; and I said hello to Stanley Turrentine, our guest soloist at ESU in 1996. "Mr. T," CeeTee, and Mulgrew's trio performed...great artists and human beings.

Phil was very sick with fluish symptoms, ironic in that he did all the right things on the two days off: slept well, swam, napped, and ate right. No fair!

July in Spain can be hot, and it was real hot! We rode the bus 8 hours to an area 45 minutes west of Madrid, Spain and performed in the courtyard of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo of El Escorial. This is a massive building founded by Spain's King Felipe II in 1563 and completed in 1584. It was the autumn residence of Spanish kings during the 17th through the 19th centuries, and most of the Spanish kings are buried in the mausoleum. There is information in travel books indicating the bodies were dried out for 15 or 20 years before actual interment (the BOTB loves that concept); but I'm not sure that I understand the theory.

We performed for a summer subscription series; many of the attendees were studying in the area for the summer. The band sounded excellent; and Phil felt the audience wasn't too enthusiastic (it was pretty obvious). So he announced: "Our final selection is Repetition. Your indifference tonight has been overwhelming." It was one of the few concerts of the tour that we didn't end with Phil's theme song, How's Your Mama?–and of course, no encore such as so many of the audiences demanded. Another irony involved the feeling that this was the lamest audience of the tour on the same night that Phil did what he had to do to perform while ill.

We returned to the hotel at 12:45 a.m., and it was not air-conditioned! Our rooms were at least 90 degrees. Help! Wasn't the hotel in Norway air-conditioned? Spain is not? Hang rating: —9.90. Wake-up calls were set for 4:30 a.m., a good time to call home.

The entire band was on the bus before 5:30 a.m. to travel to the Madrid Airport to fly to Geneva, Switzerland and then to the French Riviera city of Nice. Changing planes in Geneva, our boarding passes indicated Swissair; but as we stepped onto the tarmac...could it be?...YESSSSSS!! It's crossair, the same airline as the first day from Zurich to Lyon! Crossair was quickly becoming our favorite airline with the champagne, sandwiches, large chocolate discs, and toys for all the children. Such class!

We had a one-hour bus ride to Antibes, an incredibly active town on the Côte d'Azur (Riviera). The hotel was right on the Mediterranean and it was hot...in more ways than one! The BOTB went to the extremely crowded beach, walking around for quite a while looking for an empty chaise lounge; and suddenly it hit a couple of us: Hey, wait a minute! What the hell is this? This isn't right! Many of the women are topless!!! This really angered, confused, and incensed the BOTB to the point that we said if they can do it, so can we; so off came our shirts. In our anger, we had no shame! These people are so free of American worry, guilt, and paranoia. This is a terrible thing; so the BOTB decided to write a letter to the president of France condemning this tolerance–but we lost the address.

That evening we were really ready to perform at the 38th Festival de Jazz d'Antibes Juan-les-Pins. Antibes is the name of the entire area, and Juan-les-Pins is the small beach section where the event was held. "Pins" translates into the Mediterranean pine trees that are so prevalent in the area. Claude Monet's 1888 painting Cap d'Antibes features one of the pine trees with the Mediterranean and hills in the background; and the performance site was situated in a grove of the pines on the beach, with the incredible Mediterranean sunset directly behind the stage. The poster and printed program cover featured colorful artwork depicting the topography, very similar to Monet's painting. The Antibes festival has been of major jazz historical importance, with landmark performances and recordings by most major jazz artists of the 20th century. A case in point is the album Miles Davis in Europe, recorded there July 27, 1963 and featuring Herbie Hancock and George Coleman, whom we would be meeting two days later near Pescara, Italy.

An exciting part of the band's performance that night was our guest soloist, the incomparable tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. Originally from Chicago, Johnny moved to France decades ago. In January 1998 he came to the Gap as a guest on Phil's first feature album for Blue Note Records, titled The Rev & I (Blue Note 7243 4 94100 2 2) for a song Phil wrote about his good friend John "The Rev" Flick. After a few tunes by Phil and the band (including another memorial performance of Au Revoir Monsieur Lafitte), Johnny came out and played many improvised choruses on Phil's composition Banja Luka, which Phil composed for Quincy Jones's Big Band in the late 1950s and is named after a town in Yugoslavia.

After 15 minutes on stage, someone pointed out to Johnny that sheet music which he had conveniently stored in the bell end of his saxophone was still there during his performance! The band and audience got a tremendous kick out of Johnny's and Phil's reactions to this discovery. The concert was broadcast on French TV, and hopefully this special moment didn't get edited out. Johnny then performed an original composition with the rhythm section; Phil joined them for All the Things You Are; and the rest of the band re-entered the stage ready to surprise Johnny with their rendering of Happy Birthday as a large saxophone-birthday-cake was brought out to celebrate his 70th. We concluded our portion of the program with Repetition. The second half of the evening featured French violinist/trumpeter Didier Lockwood and his group. There were 2,500 people at the concert; general admission was $18 (or more for a reserved seat); and this event had seven major sponsors.

Antibes nightlife is a whole other universe, with thousands of people crowding the narrow streets and small bars until after 3 a.m. We were relieved to see that the women had put their tops back on. None of us hung, butit looked like a potential hang rating of 10.

We headed east and rode 5 1/2 hours along the coast to La Spezia, Italy, a port city of 120,000 on the Mediterranean known for its shipping industry. During the ride the BOTB set into motion a deceptive scheme, deciding not to tell Ken Brader III that humans are not supposed to perform the lead trumpet position as great as he was, especially with such a grueling travel schedule. The physical demands of playing lead trumpet are tough enough when musicians get routine rest, let alone with the rigors of touring.

On the many nights that the audience encouraged Phil to play an encore, Phil would come back on stage and perform his arrangement of Benny Carter's 1936 slow-swing, soft ballad Just a Mood. Phil started the piece playing clarinet extremely softly, wreaking total havoc for each sound crew (hint to crew: it's supposed to be soft); and Ken Brader's stratospheric, electrifying, swinging, grooving solo in the middle of the piece had to be heard to be believed...every time...after having already played for well over an hour. The BOTB strategy worked. Ken never figured it out; and he completed the tour performing formidably each and every night (most nights with one lung on idle!)

We arrived at the hotel; and while walking around the city, I finally spotted what I had been looking for the entire time in Italy: a store that sells hand-painted Italian bowls and plates. Presenting her incredible cooking on these bowls and plates is one of my wife Mary's two passions in life; and I purchased a lovely, large dessert plate. The only problem was that it couldn't travel safely in my suitcase; so it hung out of my trumpet bag for the final five days as a carry-on. It survived the rest of the tour.

The band closed the five-day 30th Annual La Spezia International Jazz Festival. This event featured one major performing group each evening and had five corporate sponsors. About 500 people paid $20 to attend. Phil once again opened the performance with Fred Sturm's outstanding orchestration of Phil's composition All Bird's Children. Each time Phil called A.B.C., this up-tempo burner got faster; and by the 20th day of the tour, the tempo was probably around quarter note = 421 beats per minute, for all we knew!! Why does Phil perform things at those tempos?...because he can!

Dinner was from midnight to 1:30 a.m. in a great family trattoria near the hotel. Bill Goodwin was a great maintainer of the morale of the band during the entire trip, and tonight was no exception. He was "the glue" that kept the band sane as he spent some time during the tour hanging with each musician. Not that we had any problem person in the band whose "jerk light" would go on: most of us would go out of our way to help each other when ill, exhausted, or had full hands, especially at the airports. We slammed on doors at 5 a.m. to make sure that we were all getting ready to roll. Lots of joke-telling concluded the evening. Hang rating: 10.

Throughout the tour there was a great deal of laughter. It goes along with the philosophy that if people aren't laughing and having a good time at your corporation, classroom, meeting, or home, something is wrong. Laughter is part of the creative process that leads to inventive solutions of life's problems.

We rode the bus eight hours across Italy to Pescara, a city of 160,000 on the Adriatic Sea. The band ate an early dinner (9 p.m.) at a killer restaurant that kept bringing fish kebobs featuring many fruits of the Adriatic.

The Pescara Jazz '98 Festival is in its 26th year and had six sponsors. It's held in the nearby coastal resort village of Francavilla al Mare and runs seven nights. Outside funding helps keep ticket prices between $7 and $20 each night; and 2,300 people heard our program, which we shared with the George Coleman Quartet. Jazz writer Ira Gitler was once again in attendance and reviewed this evening's performance by the PWBB and the entire Pescara festival in the November 1998 issue of Down Beat magazine (The Real Deal Sustains Pescara, p. 68). We performed from 11:15 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.; and when Phil introduced his composition Banja Luka, he said it was composed for a town in Yugoslavia "right over there," pointing over the Adriatic Sea toward the former Yugoslavia. We were back in the hotel by 1 a.m., and wake-up calls were set for 5 a.m.

The bus left at 6 a.m. sharp for a three-hour drive to the dreaded Rome Airport. The George Coleman Quartet was also on the bus, and they had taken over the BOTB. These gentlemen were quite talkative and loud. This was no problem for me since I suffer from the curse of not sleeping well on moving vehicles; so the four of them, myself, and (fortunately) the bus driver were the only folks awake on the bus. We arrived at the Rome Airport with time to spare so that we could spend some additional time in hell on earth.

It was the first weekend day of the vacation season when most of Italy goes someplace for August, and this place was a disaster! A bazillion people were rushing around; and the people at our airline of force-upon, Iberia, seemed to know nothing. The PWBB didn't fool around when checking baggage: we had it scientifically lined up immediately–where it stayed for one hour and fifteen minutes. We too didn't move for the same amount of time until some fool from Iberia started moving our luggage away from the check-in station for some intended purpose that was not in anyone's best interest. We were not happy about this, which means the BOTB crew was reveling in the darkness of these events. (Even though we weren't in a bus, the attitude was transportable.) Once this cretin was stopped, we waited a while longer (hang rating: -5.17) and finally walked to the departure gate to find that (you guessed it) the flight was delayed!

We eventually boarded the plane and finally..."arrivederci, Roma" and on our way back to Madrid...but wait! It gets better! Of all the airlines we flew on the tour, we finally found one where most of the flight attendants didn't speak English! Not that the rest of the world should speak English just for us; but couldn't they get one person who could learn to say, "Sir, you can't put that friggin' instrument in the overhead!" in English instead of grabbing it from us? Approaching Madrid later than scheduled, they read off the wrong departure gate for our connecting flight. The band rushed to the connecting flight gate to find that the flight was...you guessed it! This flight was delayed! A few minutes later Chick Corea and his latest acoustic ensemble, Origin, arrived to make the same flight to Bilbao, Spain.

Arriving in Bilbao, the band boarded a small bus for the one-hour ride to San Sebastian, Spain, a city of 180,000 in the Basque region of northern coastal Spain. We arrived at our hotel and got up to our rooms at 8 p.m.: 14 hours from hotel to hotel. Not bad! Fortunately, the temperature and humidity we experienced in Spain four days earlier had dropped significantly.

The midnight performance was at the 33rd Donostiako Jazzaldia Festival on the harbor. An island, a hillside, hotels, and casinos were brilliantly illuminated around the water; and the reflections on the water were an astounding backdrop at the performance site. The hillside contains a large white cross, not unlike Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This was a six-day event with more than 20 government and corporate sponsors. Over 3,000 people attended the concert.

During this performance, George Robert was testifying on I Remember Bird; and in the middle of George's improvisation, Phil encouraged him to take us higher with a verbally enthusiastic appeal to George's degree of cleanliness, Swiss nationalistic pride, and his mom. This was one of the most appreciative audiences of the tour; and no matter how tired the band might have been, these people earned an encore. (Even the BOTB agreed.) Jordi was leaving us tonight and asked everyone to go with him to toast the end of a successful tour. Once again, Jordi paid the bill, showing his classy and sincere appreciation; and the band returned to the hotel after 2 a.m.

We left the hotel at 9 a.m. for a one-hour bus ride back to the Bilbao Airport. It took over an hour to check in, and guess what? The flight was delayed. We flew to Madrid, changed planes, and flew to Ibiza, Spain, one of the three main Baleares Islands along with Mallorca and Menorca, about 100 miles off the southeast coast in the Mediterranean.

After arriving at the hotel we had five hours off before dinner. Ibiza has a permanent population of 25,000 that swells to 100,000 in the summer. The band performed at the base of a massive wall of a fortress from centuries ago. Colorfully lighted graphics were projected on the wall. Opening the evening was Madrid's Modern Sax Quartet, a very fine group. We performed from 11:45 p.m. to 1:15 a.m. Phil told the audience that this was the final evening of one of his career dreams: a touring big band recording and performing his big band compositions and arrangements. He then complimented the entire band on their musicianship and cooperation. The feeling's mutual, Phil. We were closing the three-day Muestra de jazz injuve Ibiza '98, which had four government sponsors and 600 people paying $9 for the evening. We were back to the hotel by 1:45 a.m.; wake-up calls were set for 8 a.m.

We left the hotel at 9:30 a.m. to get an 11:10 a.m. flight to Barcelona. At the Ibiza Airport, we bid a tearful adieu to our final bus and boarded an Iberia (uh-oh!) plane. Jesse Heckman left us in Barcelona to head to his apartment in Oslo; and we boarded a Swissair (relief!) flight to Zurich, where we said goodbye to George Robert. During the four-hour layover in Zurich, the aches, chills, and sweats of some bug hit me; and I was down for the count. The nine-hour flight to Newark was pretty tough for me, especially since the movie was a Leonardo DiCaprio double-feature. As we flew over the North Atlantic where the 1912 disaster occurred, Titanic was well on its way down; and Jeff said, "Here we are flying over that same area. I hate irony." All I could think of was that my flu-ridden body would appreciate a dip in the cool North Atlantic about then.

Arriving at Newark was frustrating because another flight arrived simultaneously at 10:30 p.m.; and passport control only had six people on duty for 400-plus arrivees (welcome back to the USA?) It took 45 minutes to get to the outside air of Newark. Jill Goodwin was on the case, meeting us with the van; and she was the epitome of efficient loading and driving. I was home by 1 a.m. Again, not bad: 21 1/2 hours to get home. Tom Hamilton and Jim Buckley added another hour or so to get to Scranton, PA; and Jeff, Kevin, and Lew stayed overnight at Newark to catch a morning flight to their homes.

A few weeks later in August the band performed six nights at the famed Blue Note jazz club in New York City, where we reclaimed Rick Chamberlain, Jan Betz, George Young, and Ed Neumeister. One evening featured a live broadcast via the Internet; and as Ira Gitler was once again in attendance, he wrote a summer summary of the PWBB on the Internet for Jazz Central Station. For the week, over 2,000 people heard the band along with the Jacky Terrasson Trio as they paid a $30 cover charge plus a $5 drink minimum plus parking and other expenses/risks. Lead alto saxophonist George Young has been a studio icon in New York for decades; and as many of us were jammed into the tiny band dressing room upstairs, he asked us how the tour went. Lew Del Gatto gave George an extensive blow-by-blow account–and George was aghast and kept responding to the descriptions of the travel by exclaiming, "How unhealthy" and "You're all still alive?" Lew then asked the twelve of us who were standing around listening: "And how many of you had a good time?" Twelve hands went up.

And, of course, the band performed for our neighbors and long-distance visitors at the 21st Annual Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts jazz & arts festival in September 1998...in the same lovely little village and on the same stage where it all began for Phil Woods and the COTA Festival Orchestra!

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The COTA Festival

The annual Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts (COTA) jazz & arts festival was founded in 1978 by Phil Woods, trombonist Rick Chamberlain, and the late Ed Joubert. The (COTA) Festival Orchestra had been founded by former New York band leader, composer, and copyist Dick "Uncle Dickie" Cone as a rehearsal band called "Grandma's Soup" in the late 1980s and has been led by Phil Woods since Cone's death in 1991. It performs each September the weekend after Labor Day.

The festival is held across the street from the legendary Deer Head Inn (which as of this writing has run live jazz for almost 50 years and now presents over 160 jazz events yearly). This location is an outstanding environment for performers and listeners, as it is situated in northeastern Pennsylvania just off of Interstate 80 on the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border. The event attracts 3,500 listeners from as far away as Australia, featuring over 20 hours of performances of local musicians the likes of Dave Liebman, Urbie Green, Jesse Green, Kathy Green, Bob Dorough, Eric Doney, the Jazz Artists Repertory Orchestra, the Steve Gilmore Quintet, Janet Lawson, the COTA Cats (a local summer high school big band co-directed by IAJE members Phil Woods and Patrick Dorian for 19 years), the Phil Woods Quintet, The COTA Festival Orchestra, and more. plus a Sunday morning Jazz Mass. The entire weekend features arts, crafts, and decent cuisine.

The 22nd annual COTA festival will be held September 10-12, 1999. For more information, call 570/424-2210 or visit the COTA web site at <www.members.aol.com/cotajazz>. For the CD Jazz Mass (Pacific Street Records PSR 0019), phone 800/742-6023. All of the printed compositions and arrangements from the CD Phil Woods & the Festival Orchestra Celebration!, along with dozens of other Phil Woods works, are available from Music DuBois, P.O. Box 278, Delaware Water Gap, PA 18327 USA.

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A Sampler of COTA Band Members' CDs

Bassist Steve Gilmore referred to the PWBB as "a band of leaders." The following is a selected discography of recent releases.

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For an in-depth interview with and discography of Phil Woods, see "Phil Woods: The Thirst for Jazz Education" by Dr. Larry Fisher (JEJ September 1997).

Patrick Dorian has been on the music faculty of East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania since 1987. Since 1992 he has been chairperson of the U.S. division of IAJE's Educational Jazz Festivals and Summer Jazz Studies, compiling directories for the JEJ. His writings include seven pages of the enclosure booklet for the 1997 CD The Urbie Green Quintet: Sea Jam Blues (Chiaroscuro CR[D]338) and a chapter in the hardcover book Annual Review of Jazz Studies 8: 1996 (Institute of Jazz Studies and the Scarecrow Press, Inc.). He holds degrees from Ithaca College and Northwestern University. All IAJE members are encouraged to vote for Dorian when Down Beat magazine creates the poll category Talent Deserving Wider Recognition: Split Fourth Trumpet Performer in a Big Band Setting.

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