Swing Band Gets a Gig

This weekend was the 40th Cathedral Park Jazz Festival, always a very fine, free event of mostly local music to listen to while sitting on the grass under the St. Johns Bridge. But this year it all came from an indoor studio in the old Jantzen swimsuit factory where musicians did their best to keep a healthy distance from each other and to play their hearts out - with no audience.

First to perform today was the Minidoka Swing Band, a band that "remembers the Japanese Americans who were interned behind barbed wire during WWII." It's members are mostly Japanese-Americans, but some, like my husband, are just happy to be able to be part of the group. 

There used to be more, but two of the players lived in the camps themselves. One, the band leader, opted not to participate today, and the other is vocalist Nola Bogle. The other vocalist pictured, is her son, Andy Striech. Nola was around 8 when her family was forced into the Minidoka camp, the camp in Idaho the band is named for. 

There's a picture of most of the band, who were stretched out as far as possible, so you couldn't see them all at once, but you can see Eric, my trombone playing husband, in the upper left corner.