lewislewistpt

Larry,
Do you know Denny Christianson? He is up here (Toronto) now running the Jazz Studies program at Humber College. He was my teacher for a short while and I played in one of his bigbands at the college. Great guy, outstanding band leader and obviously at one time a top-notch player. He's bogged down with admin. duties these days and doesn't get a whole lot of time on the horn, so his playing is come and go these days. He's done great things for the school and brings in a lot of the "heavies" from the US for clinics and concerts.

Just wondering if you had any stories to share? BTW, Denny's playing Edwards/Getzen horns these days.

Larry Gianni

L-trpt

Denny was a session player here in Los Angeles , leaving sometime in the early 80's . I actually have a credit for him on a " Donna Summers " album my wife has.He's playing in good company on that one. Jerry Hey, Chuck Findley and Gary Grant. The " go to " guys in this town. I also have him playing on a Kim Richmond Big Band Album ( Kim was a local musician and wrote musical scores for movies and TV shows so he had a great big band going at the time)

The trumpet section was Bob O'Donnell , Denny , Mike Natale ( trumpet player from the Mike Douglas show ) and Bob Summers of " Maynard's Fox Hunt " fame. For some of you that don't recognize the name Bob O' Donnell - Bob was the #1 Claude Gordon student in the 70's and actually did clinic's with Claude as he promoted his method and trumpet line and used Bob and his playing as an example of what his method could accomplish.
Bob, at a very young age , played lead trumpet on the Shipstad's and Johnson's ice show ( super hard book ) as their traveling lead player and was the original lead trumpet player for the Tom Kubis Big Band here in town. Wayne Bergeron played 2nd to Bob so it tells you just how good Bob is. When Bob left , Wayne took over the reigns.

Wayne's "Oh Holy Night " rendition is from a "Tom Kubis" Christmas Album

Back to Denny

Denny left town around the same time Jay Daversa left ( Jays in Branson now ) to pursue different interests and what I'm told, concentrated more on his writing and own band. Denny does have a album out under his own name called " Suite Mingus" that he did in the mid 80's

Denny played a Calicchio 2 bell and 2 leadpipe with a Reeves mouthpiece when he was in Los Angeles.

I'll see if it's been re-issued and post the url here for anyone interested.

Got it:

http://music.barnesandnoble.com/sear...an=68944001521