Disproportionate Numbers of Freckled Redheads in High School, College Jazz Bands

[Teasing the Korean]

To the professional, semi-professional, and amateur musicians on the list:

Did your high school or college jazz/stage band feature a disproportionate number of freckled redheads?  It seemed like every redhead in our high school played trombone, trumpet, or saxophone.  

Was this a coincidence in my school, or is there a genetic linkage between red hair and an interest in Maynard Ferguson, Buddy Rich, and Stan Kenton? 

Edited November 24, 2018 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

The only freckled redhead in ours was a girl, and she didn't really care about it, she was just good at playing the parts.

We did have some black kids, though. And, only somewhat coincidentally, we were all just as interested in Basie and Cannonball as we were Kenton/etc. And James Brown, can't underestimate how a new James Brown record coming out every day and a half, most of which featured somebody playing some kind of jazz-like sound, filtered into that mix.

As for Maynard, this one here created a lot of common ground, as had the original.

Oh, you'll dig this - the Kenton record we dug before any others was Hair.

Maybe worth considering - it was called "stage band" then, and we played a lot of Don Sebesky "jazz-rock" charts that he had published by some outfit called Alfred Music.

[sgcim]

No, as I mentally survey my HS and college stage bands, I just come up with a very talented electric bass player with the physical traits you mention, who gave up all his talent and ambition when he became born again. The drummer in my first rock band had those traits, but as soon as he got out of Catholic school, descended into a pattern of degeneracy that could only come from receiving daily beatings by nuns for eight years.

[Chuck Nessa]

Recently my 5 year old grandson stated he was the only kid in school with blue eyes. "One of the teachers has blue eyes, but most of them are brown. A couple have green eyes, but..." As I said earlier, Rex will continue his eye inventory.

[JSngry]

I have brown eyes.

 

[Gheorghe]

When I was a young man, I played in a short-lived jazz combo (as, tb, p, g, b, dr) and the trombone player was a huge guy with an respectable girth, and he was a freckled redhair.

He was a funny guy, but concerning the rehearsals he made the most mistakes and we often had to interrupt the music just that he can play the line again. This was not necessarly his fault, the leader had written quite tricky compositions and let´s say the trombone is hard to play.  But.....I must admit when he got it nailed he had a beautiful sound and nice ideas, so I called him separatly for other gigs, since he had that nice trombone sound and as I said, nice lines.

But once when we had a rehearsal he again was the one who made a mistake, and I got bored and said I´d go upstairs and smoke a cigarette and have a beer until he got the theme.

When I came back we played the stuff again and maybe because I wasn´t really concentrated I also made a mistake, my first mistake, and that guy got red at the face like a turkey and pointed to me and went "ha ha ha" ha ha ha " Now YOU made a mistake.

His nick was "Specky" which means something like "Fats" in german. I liked him, always a funny guy and a goodenough musician.

Edited November 28, 2018 by Gheorghe