This one time at a Rebirth Brass Band show I saw a man named Derrick “Khabuki” Shezbie smoke while playing his trumpet. It’s a rare day indeed that I’m an advocate of smoking, but in this particular case… spectacular!

Earlier in the day the band had done an impromptu mini second line right through Times Square… spectacular! In between those spectacular moments certain members of the band got lost on their way to the venue they were to play at that night in lower Manhattan. I ran into them wandering the streets and helped them find where they were going. They invited me into the musician’s lounge before the show began. I was stunned.

You have to understand that at the time I was about 18 years old and an avid trombone player myself. These men were larger than life to me. I didn’t quite know what was going on other than that I was in the same room as them, I couldn’t speak, and they were offering me beer… in hindsight, spectacular!