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Back in 1994 I was part of a quintet thet played a few gigs, but mainly played special events in churches. It was called Crimson brass. We needed a trumpet player at one point, and one night I was teaching a masterclass at a school and met a cute but friendly female trumpet player that was also teaching that night. I got her number under the guise of getting her into the quintet to help us out

That was 29 years ago, and we've been married for 28 years

Now that's the background, here's the point

One of the members of the quintet is suffering from Alzheimer's in memory care. (our trombone player that played the parts on bass trumpet) but he still plays along with recordings of the quintet. I find that incredible.

Yesterday I got a Facebook message from the leader of the quintet asking if we would consider reuniting to go play for the member who is in memory care for a Christmas concert.

Couldn't say yes fast enough.

Just have to work out a time to practice as a group, get someone to play trombone on most of the songs, and find a day before Christmas to drive the 4.5 hours to the city where the memory care facility is.

Worth it

Over the years, I've been in three or four different regularly performing quintets. Right now I'm sort of in an occasionally-performing one, and play in some thrown-together ones (though of all great players) at churches. I would like to find myself back in a more regularly performing one, even though it's hard to find time. It would be worth it. Also, it would be nice if the one in which I'm playing (which is under someone's else auspices) could be funded just a little bit more - so that we could do something other than read charts at gigs, and actually work on challenging music and play actual recitals.

They're actually is one (or maybe even more than one) quintet around here made up of really good players who mostly just meet and play weekly, but I would want to do more than just get together and rehearse at someone's house.