Wednesday, March 5, 2008

unknown trombone

Back during December I made many a post of my father's orchestra H. Westbrook Orchestra. There are photos in dad's scrapbook that he did not identify. One of dad's old horn player's John "Jack" Blount posted a message in my Skylight guestbook that I posted not long ago. He had apparently run across my posts and took the time to reminisce. I am going to pull an unlabeled photo from dad's scrapbook (from time to time) for those who might one day stumble across my humble blog and either see themselves or recognize someone...who knows.
Dad's little booking ledger lists the Ausable Chasm. I found this image of the hotel there and it might be the very place that dad ventured to and that I posted about back in December. Do you remember my telling of dad traveling up to the New York (while his band members were taking a break from touring) and fronted the resort's musicians?

There's a bit of good news. My mother came to the office last week and brought a cassette tape of the H. Westbrook Orchestra. I never recalled the music ever being transferred from the old album made years ago. Dad once told me that the recording wasn't his best because he had better ensembles. As I mentioned earlier, orchestra members were always changing and dad said that the last ensemble that he had was the best he'd ever had. I am going to try to post a sample of the music as soon as possible. I didn't hear any of it. I didn't want to stress the tape anymore than I have to. Jose' dropped by that day and took it with him. He is going to try to burn the contents onto CD. I don't know what the quality will be like and hope that the old tape will hold up for the one playing it will take to make the CD. We'll see. Below is a picture of dad (Henry Westbrook Finlayson, Sr) in mid-croon.

No comments: