The Beginning of My Education as a Performer

To my knowledge, the trumpet player Andy Omdahl is the lead trumpet with a jazz orchestra in Seattle and Mark Adams was playing in Vegas.
John Pastin, the saxophonist is presently the Dean of Music at Rowan University in Glassboro NJ. After hearing such monster musicians,
I always dreamt of playing in a group like that someday. After graduating from the School of Music my first assignment was Ft. Sill, OK.
Being a sax player I was in the Big Band and occasionally got to play in small combos. My first pay gig was with a large combo that was the 1SG’s private group.
We played some private functions at the Officers’ Club. Getting paid for playing? I was hooked! I didn’t get the chance to do too many private jobs at Ft. Sill
but it was fun when I did. My next duty station was Camp Zama, Japan.