What happens when a bunch of guys who learned to play musical instruments in middle age decide to get together and play for fun? The answer: they get better, form a band and eventually move from practicing at home to playing in public.
Twelve years after such a beginning, the local jazz band Blue Seven now plays regularly at venues like the Aqus Café in Petaluma (where they’ll be playing June 3), the Redwood Café in Cotati (June 28) and the Penngrove Pub - as well as at festivals and private events.
Most of the members, who range in age from 59 to 70, are retired or semi-retired.
They are drummer Claus Brigmann, keyboard player Ron Masi, guitarist John Mihalik, bassist Dave Webster and saxophonist Preston Bailey.
“We all learned to play later in life,” said Webster. “We just wanted to play music and were trying to find other desperadoes who wanted to do it too.”
Bailey is the newest member, but unlike the others, has been playing several instruments most of his life. He retired two years ago after working as a music educator in Petaluma schools for three decades.
The others credit Bailey with raising their proficiency to a new level.
“Since Preston has been with us, it’s been a big difference,” said Masi, a technical translator who is fluent in French and Italian. “Before that, the band didn’t have a leader.”
“We have been able to put it all together with Preston in the band,” agreed Webster, a retired UPS worker. “Before that, our growth was pretty slow. As an ensemble, we were treading water.”
“We can really hear each other now,” pointed out Mihalik, a physician with Kaiser Permanente. “When we started, we were having fun while trying to learn the idiom of jazz. It’s a world of difference for us between 2006 and now.”
Brigmann, a retired research associate at the Bodega Marine Laboratory, grew up with jazz. “Hamburg (Germany) was a hotbed of New Orleans jazz,” he said.
Blue Seven plays cool jazz or West Coast jazz.
“It’s classic jazz,” said Bailey. “Beefy, meaty music. Songs like ‘Harlem Nocturne,’ ‘The Pink Panther’ and ‘Take Five.’?”
“People who aren’t big jazz fans come to hear us because they recognize the songs,” added Mihalik.
He said that playing music with the group has been therapeutic, because Blue Seven has dealt with illnesses and deaths in the group and with family members. Michael Whitwell and Bruce Eriksen, both trumpet players, passed away in recent years. When Whitwell and Eriksen were in the band, Blue Seven also had three saxophone players.
Now, Bailey is the only horn player.
Blue Seven also has three “auxiliary” members: Peter Welker, on trumpet; Bob Johns, on keyboards and Robert “Conga Bobby” Ramirez, percussion.
“They’re always welcome, they’re always invited,” Bailey said. “They don’t need to rehearse. They don’t have to show up - but it’s always better when they do.”
“It feels really good when they play with us,” said Mihalik. “It validates some of the progress we’ve made.”
“We’ve always been blessed to have ‘ringers’ in the band,” said Webster. “We talked Preston into joining us for a gig in Healdsburg just after we had lost two other musicians.”
Bailey said it was fun to be asked join the band and be a coach.
“People ask me, ‘Do you miss teaching?’ I say, ‘Nope, I’m still doing it.’?”
He tells the other musicians to always keep their eyes and ears open and to be ready to adapt.
Mihalik, a Healdsburg resident, is the only non-Petaluman in the group. Previously, he had dabbled with the guitar, playing 3-or 4-chord rock and blues songs, until he was gifted a guitar by master luthier Linda Manzer.
“It wasn’t until I got this extraordinary guitar that I really got started,” he said.
The original name of the group was the Wicked Uncles.
Brigmann said they picked the name because in his native Germany, der böse onkel (the wicked uncle), “was the uncle you always were looking to hang out with at family gatherings … the uncle who was always willing to slip you a beer.”
The name change came a few years later when Mihalik had landed the group a gig at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. There was just one catch.
“They told me, ‘You can’t be called the Wicked Uncles,’?” Mihalik recalled. “?‘People will think you’re a punk-rock band.’?”
Mihalik quickly looked at their set list and saw the song “Blue Seven.”
“There were seven of us in the band at that time, so we became Blue Seven,” he said.
They still call each other “uncle,” though.
(Chris Samson is the former editor of the Argus-Courier. Contact him at chrissamson@yahoo.com.)
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