I don’t know who first said it but it’s as true a statement as one can utter: Death is the great equalizer.
On Monday, April 19, the Southern California swing music scene lost a bandleader/musician and all-around great guy, and I didn’t know him. Tim Gill, 37, and his wife Joylani Kamalu, 40, died in an airplane crash.
When I say I didn’t know him I mean it. We weren’t even Facebook friends. I probably had seen him play but I don’t think we were ever introduced. Which means I can’t speak from the heart about him, but I do want to speak about our collective hearts.
What I do know is that several people I consider very good friends felt the loss deeply. In fact, one of them a fellow musician is such an optimist it’s rare to see her post anything that isn’t serotonin fueled. I am the rain cloud to her ray of sunshine, so when I see her post something that gets even remotely close to solemn, I know something has rocked her.
I texted another friend of mine to offer up a kind word. (Both of these friends prefer texting even if I don’t and, in this instance, it seemed the right type of communication.) He proceeded to tell me that Tim was an expert pilot and had just gotten a new Cessna so his guess is that it wasn’t pilot error but probably mec
