Tags
Alzheimer's, Charlottesville band, clarinet, dementia, FLD, frontal lobe dementia, frontotemporal dementia, FTD, music, Nick Page, saxophone, The Red Hot Smoothies
Part of the Fractured Memories paintings series that I’m working on includes little 6″x6″ oil paintings of things that remind me of my dad. As his own world view fractured and he became able to only see pieces of it, so did, in some ways, my view of who my dad was. I have little snapshots in my head of who he was and what he loved. So my goal was to do a series of small fragments of things that represent him so that even people who didn’t know him would have an inkling of the things that made him him. For the next few Thursdays, I’ll try to remember to post a new one. Here’s what we’ll start out with:
My dad was a musician and played the clarinet and saxophone with his swing band, Nick Page and The Red Hot Smoothies. They mostly played events around Charlottesville, but his identity was very much tied in to his role as a band leader and musician. The Smoothies still exist and play a few gigs here and there with the remaining members and new members as needed. Dad’s go-to guitar player, Tom Harbeck, posted on Facebook a couple days ago that he was playing a gig with the Smoothies and someone came up at the end of the night to compliment the band and asked who the sax player used to be. Tom told him, “Nick Page” and the man smiled and said, “Yes, that’s the one.” Glad to know he’s still remembered even though he hasn’t played a gig in about 5 years. So, with that in mind, here are two paintings that give snapshots of who my dad used to be:
Will look forward to Thursdays in the next month or so. A nice exercise for a great guy who has a very loving daughter!!!
LikeLike
Thanks, Chip!
LikeLike
Pingback: Miss Piggy and Groucho Noses | The Perks of Being an Artist
Hi, not sure if you will ever get this but I was a flight crew member and we flew a basketball team up to Charlottesville for a game in the 1990’s. We had a night off and went to a nightclub and caught your dad’s band! We thought it was going to be rock but it was beautiful jazz – my father is also a jazz musician and plays piano, clarinet and sax! We had so much fun and the music was awesome! For some reason, that night popped into my mind so I did a search for The Red Hot Smoothies and found what you wrote. What a beautiful tribute!
LikeLike
Oh wow, thank you SO much for reaching out! This was a really lovely surprise and made me smile. He’d be so happy to know that you remember that so many years later.
LikeLike