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The Tuba Man Memorial was held last night at Qwest Field, home of the Seattle football team. I was unable to attend but I guess it was quite a show. Chris Olka of the SSO was a featured performer and the University of Washington Husky Band played in uniform on the field.

Here's a link to the article and pictures:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/387 ... ial13.html" target="_blank" target="_blank

EDIT:

P.S. To all gearheads: Ed's tuba is shown on the dais. He played a 186 CC. The bell rim could use a few moments of the Oberlohvian touch but, otherwise, looks pretty good. Not surprising because Ed originally played in 'real' orchestras but didn't want to leave Seattle to get a good paying gig. People who heard him play before the opera and ballet said he was the 'real deal'. He could really play. Many pictures are shown in the article.

I had the gracious opportunity to play in the tuba ensemble, next to retired Navy tubist Jim Bigelow and Seattle Symphony tubist Chris Olka, last night at the memorial. It was such a wonderful tribute to a famous Seattle icon. Tuba Man will be missed.

Very nice... makes me want to wear a big goofy hat to TubaChristmas this year in memory of TubaMan.

Nice article in the front section of the NY Times today about him and the memorial service.

Makes me glad to be a part of the tuba/Tubenet community.

what would be neat is if we could organize some tuba players in all cities to go out and play before a game or two in his honor.

whatsupdoc wrote:Nice article in the front section of the NY Times today about him and the memorial service.

Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/us/14 ... ref=slogin" target="_blank

Nice article. There needs to be a place for the eccentrics of the world. Tuba Man was one of them Two communities which sometimes are at odds with each other- sports and the arts- were brought together through their love for the Tuba Man.

wow. What a special memorial.

a couple of thoughts.....

1) street violence is an awful tragedy, that takes a high profile event like this for far to many cities to do something constructive about.

2) the comments on the seattle paper's article are quite interesting. A number of rememberences, and such, but also a surprizing number of complaints about the Mayor/Police chief, and a pretty good racist rant from someone trying to escape into white america, and not finding it.

and now, the call to action.....tuba players should likely all get out and busk a bit (as we can). A few tunes at the farmers market in your town, or on the quad/lawn of your local college/university (wherever the nutters and street preachers in your town gather).

rocksanddirt wrote: 1) street violence is an awful tragedy, that takes a high profile event like this for far to many cities to do something constructive about.

You are assuming that something will happen?

I'm taking bets that the street violence rate for Seattle stays the same or is higher this time next year. The violent murder of the Tuba Man won't change a thing.

rocksanddirt wrote: 2) the comments on the seattle paper's article are quite interesting. A number of rememberences, and such, but also a surprizing number of complaints about the Mayor/Police chief, and a pretty good racist rant from someone trying to escape into white america, and not finding it.

You can kind of disregard most of the comments in the "Sound Off" section. I click on that link when I read an article in the Seattle P-I. It's usually the same twenty or thirty 'kooks' from both wings of reality yelling at each other. There is a street crime problem in parts of gentrified Downtown Seattle that is not being effectively dealt with by City Hall or the police.

We have our racists here, too, but it's kinda underground. It shows up in things like anonymous Sound Off posts. "Official" boundaries between white and 'other' neighborhoods ('other' being 'not white' and 'not Christian') disappeared in the 60s but they are still unofficially there. One of the major problems for blacks is to find affordable housing. The home prices in their 'traditional' neighborhoods have gone sky high because the low price attracted wealthier whites who had the funds to purchase and renovate the older black housing which was white and fancy when whites last lived there before about 1930. As blacks moved to town for work in the shipyards and the airplane factories, they moved into these houses because (wait for it) they weren't allowed anywhere but in these houses that had been abandoned by whites. Many blacks today are very angry for whites moving into 'their neighborhood'. And so it goes...

And, still, you will find very few blacks or other minorities living in neighborhoods north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal which has always been the unofficial boundary between white and minority communities in Seattle.

This is suited more for the "hyphenated American" thread in the "Off Topic" area so, if anyone cares to respond, do it there.

I remember seeing him once in Seattle and deciding not to take the time to talk to him. Now I regret that very much. Was Ed "eccentric"? Not the best description.

Colorful. Much better.

RIP, man.

Alex C wrote:

rocksanddirt wrote: 1) street violence is an awful tragedy, that takes a high profile event like this for far to many cities to do something constructive about.

You are assuming that something will happen?

I'm taking bets that the street violence rate for Seattle stays the same or is higher this time next year. The violent murder of the Tuba Man won't change a thing.

I was speaking generally, of this sort of tragedy. I don't know the area well enough to know if anything will change, but the potential exists now. Whether the will to make it happen does, is unknown.

The Big Ben wrote:Here's a link to the article and pictures:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/387 ... ial13.html" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

A small correction. In the photo, Mike is on the left and Chris is on the right.