On Tuesday night, as our last meeting of the year, the Jewish Community Center klezmer band had what our teacher/leader called a musical soiree at the home of one of the members. It’s a big house on Commonwealth Ave in Newton, right along the route of the Boston Marathon (except that part of Comm Ave has a one-way lane separated from the race route on the two main traffic lanes by a grassy mall area, so our pianist can’t really watch the race from her front lawn). There were, let’s see, accordion, piano, electronic keyboard, electric bass, snare drum, flute, clarinet, and trumpet. Most of the musicians had invited at least one friend or significant other. The hostess had invited neighbors, her grown-up kids, and her 80-something aunt. Even that big house was pretty full, with musicians in the living room, a couple of audience members on the sofa, others in the family room at the rear of the house and in the big front hall.
I did vocals on “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” and “Tumbalalaika” as well as trumpet for a couple of the early songs and baritone horn for most of the concert.