Strangest gig you’ve done on Tuba

[bort]

at one point I was handed a Shiner Bock...

...by a person with very, very long arms

[roweenie]

Strolling trad jazz gig in a clown costume (including make-up) in Times Square (circa 1989, ie. drug dealers, pimps, peep shows, pick pockets, not 2018, ie. Disneyland and tourists from Keokuk), among others.

[Bill Troiano]

I could write a book and people tell me I should, but here's a strange one where I didn't even play. I was still with the Guy Lombardo Band in 1978 and we had a gig in the finger lakes where we were to get driven to one of the lakes at sunrise where they erected a bandstand.We were to film a tv commercial for Taylor Wine, which was to be used for the New Year's Eve tv broadcast, live from the Waldorf Astoria. Some of the guys in the band objected to doing the commercial because was scheduled during our vacation (after the Jones beach summer gig and before we hit our Fall road tour.) We were then told the gig was voluntary and they would fill in with subs and that we, most likely, wouldn't be playing. They would use recordings. I decided to go because I was free and it paid good. We get to a hotel and had to get up around 4 am the next morning to get to the lake. We get off the bus and we're wearing our tuxes with the red jackets and the bus can't get close enough to the band stand, so we have to walk through the woods in the dark, in the morning dew (it was August and at least the temps were nice.) By the time we reached the band stand, we were all soaking wet and a little chilled. Then, we had to wait for sunrise. When the sun finally came up, it was too foggy to do the shoot, so we had to hang for hours until the fog lifted. 4 hours later, we're ready to shoot and Guy notices all the subs. He sends the manager over to me and tells me Guy wants me to play trumpet. He didn't like the look of the sub trumpet player and he thought I would look better playing 2nd tpt. next to his brother Lebert. And, he could hide the tpt. sub behind my King bell-front tuba. So, I said I don't play tpt. and he reiterated that we weren't playing, just basically lip syncing to recorded music. So, I agreed, but the tpt. player was pretty upset. He eventually went along with the idea and we did the shoot.

Well, later that Fall, Guy passed away from complications due to heart surgery. Taylor Wine didn't want to air the commercial using a recently deceased band leader promoting they wine. Now, some of you might recall this. They aired the commercial anyway, but they silhouetted the band and imposed Count Basie as the band leader promoting the wine. It looked more like sunset after all we went thought to do that shoot. And, anybody who knows their bands knows that Basie didn't use a tuba that's clearly visible in the silhouetted band. But I got paid really good to be a silhouette holding a trumpet in a band where I play tuba.

[windshieldbug]

Strolling trad jazz gig in a clown costume (including make-up) in Times Square (circa 1989, ie. drug dealers, pimps, peep shows, pick pockets, not 2018, ie. Disneyland and tourists from Keokuk), among others.

No samples offered?
(you were dressed for the occasion... oh, those were the days!)

[Tubajug]

My first polka gig was me, the drummer, and 13 accordions. That was about as strange as I've done.

[Wayne Rice]

I was once called by a gentleman of Russian extraction to play in a German band in Tijuana. When we got to the meeting place on the American side, I told him I had no passport. He said there was no problem--I didn't need one to go to Mexico, just to get back. He said I would be fine.

During the gig, he called tunes with no music, but because they were pop tunes, and it was loud in this Mexican restaurant, I just faked my way through the gig.

Midway through the night, probably 8 hours removed from home, I was hungry. I declared my intention to walk across the parking lot to get some wings. The sax player, who had quite a bit of experience playing in Mexico, advised against it, telling me that Americans were routinely kidnapped. Hmmm. So, no wings. This was in 2009 or 2010, when things were very rough in TJ.

On the way back across the border, probably 300 feet away from it, it was decided that I would get out of the van in my tux, after midnight, and walk across the border without my passport. That went OK, believe or not.

Later that week, I found out that an American woman crossing the border on foot that same weekend had been shot.

[David Richoux]

I have been part of quite a few unusual gigs, that comes with the territory around the San Francisco Bay Area, but some of the strangest were:
Playing Traditional Jazz with the “B Natural Jazz Band” at several NorCal Nudist/Naturist resorts. Uniform was a black bow tie and optional towel.

Playing with a NOLA style brass band at a somewhat sketchy San Francisco/Russian Internet money transfer business at their annual party - we were asked to play jazzy versions of popular Russian songs, but not given a song list. A few frantic days of web searching, a half hour rehearsal before the gig was all we had time for. It actually went pretty well, considering. A ice sculpture free flowing vodka fountain helped a bit.

I could mention hundreds more, but I won’t.

[Lee Stofer]

Oh, my goodness - too many to list!

My first strange gig was in the Army, 101st Airborne Divison Band, circa 1981. We prepared, and went to Campbell Army Airfield one morning for an arrival ceremony. After waiting for a while, we formed up at the edge of the tarmac as a couple of C-5A Galaxy transport planes taxied in. The band started playing as two Deuce-and-a-halves (Army terminology for the 2 1/2 ton truck) with Soldiers riding in the bed of each truck took off across the tarmac to the planes. The noses of each C-5A opened, ramps were lowered into place, and the Soldiers started driving new trucks off the planes. When they were all gone, we packed up, and realized that we had just played an arrival ceremony for new trucks. . . . .

[TWTuba]

Oooh, 101st Division Band stories!! In the mid-90s the Band played a ceremony, also at the airfield, for the last Huey helicopter at Ft. Campbell. Great ceremony. The pilot ran from the ceremony site to his aircraft, started it up, and literally flew off into the sunset (it was an afternoon job). The next day, all of the Hueys they had moved into the hangars were pulled back out on the airfield and were flying around the training areas. I think they were around for another six months or so.

[EdFirth]

In 82' I was playing the Bauccus Mardi Gras parade with Pete Fountain's band on a float. Dom Deluise was grand marshal and was seated high up on the back, with his son, and was tossing dubloons in the bell of my tuba. While in the holding area before the parade Pete hailed a kid from the crowd and gave him ten bucks to get some wine. Of course, we never saw the kid again and when it started we were rolling down St Charles St. playing and tossing beads and dubloons between tunes. It was fun until we stopped at a corner that I had walked through and ridden my bike through hundreds of times except when I looked around us there was no visable street or sidewalk. It was solid people. They were all from the projects, and they wanted some beads and dubloons and were becoming increasingly agitated until they were right up against the float. I had emptied my bag of goodies and others were throwing them overhand. Finally we started moving again on to the convention center at the foot of Canal St. The next day the band and Pete's HalfFast Walking club played their early morning parade starting at Commander's Palace at 6am with each person getting a half pint of Jack Daniels to start down St Charles St and a refill stop at every bar until we hit the French Quarter then a spread at Pete's club at the Hilton. So the second part was a lot better than the first and just as we reached Canal St. Al Hirt came rolling out of a German restaurant dressed as a pirate. He and Pete started playing this tune that nobody else knew but I could hear the changes so just the three of us played it. Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, and some idiot with a tuba.Pete's jobs were always fun. He is sorely missed. Ed