No, the title “Jazz Bugs” doesn’t refer to a new jazz band but I wouldn’t be surprised. I use it in reference to being “bitten” by several jazz bugs over my many years. Actually, the first “big” bug would be music in general.
Big Band
During the big band days of the ’30s I was too young to dash off to a Benny Goodman or an Artie Shaw concert…but by WWII’s end at age ten I had been bitten; that’s for sure. The music bug struck me at age three, according to my mother, while living in Cotton Plant, Missouri, where my father sharecropped. She told me how hard I cried when she’d take me in her arms and carry me away from the sound of the field hands’ singing. To this day I love the old church tunes and regularly begin my show each Sunday with one, usually by a trad band like the Climax Jazz Band from Toronto. With no car (Dad was a mule farmer) we often walked a short distance to my father’s Uncle Will’s place where Uncle Will, who was blind, would bring a kitchen chair out into the yard and then play tune after tune, mostly old church and mountain tunes. By then, I knew I was hooked.
Bluegrass
I saw my first “light” bulb at age 5 when we moved into Kennett, Missouri. One of my dad’s first purchases was a little radio that pulled in the Grand Ole Opry and the Cardinals baseball games. As a small child I loved the rhythms and fun lyrics of country.
