The 31st Annual Arizona Classic Jazz Festival was held in Chandler the first weekend in November—and New Orleans moved 1300 miles closer to the Pacific Ocean! Bands representing all styles of traditional jazz converged at the San Marcos Hotel for three and a half days of fantastic live music. The masked and distanced attendees truly enjoyed the opportunity to hear live music again. Most of the musicians had not performed in the past eight months and were more than anxious to share the stages.
Although several of the scheduled bands cancelled their engagements a few months prior, the musicians that did attend were enthralling. Queen City Jazz Band from Denver and The Black Market Trust were the only non-local bands to have their entire group on stage while other bands shared their players much to our delight.
Only a few days before the event, drummer Danny Coots was not able to make the trip and all drummers in attendance were called to “special duty” with the other bands. When Cornet Chop Suey cancelled, Dick Maley (dr) decided he still wanted to attend and brought along Herb Bruce (tb), Randy Morris (p) and Steve Pikal (bs) to form WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and they were fantastic.
As it turned out all four of them were called upon to fill in for a
