When The World Was Young

I was at a concert the other night at Westbury. Buddy Guy the old blues guitarist was the attraction and he was great in the style of BB King. But no matter how good he was it brought me back to a time my world was young because I was young.

The best thing about youth is that at any stage it was always the first time for something, the first black and white soda, the first slice of Pizza, the first time kiss, the first love, the first experience that was good or even bad like going to the dentist for the first time.

Anyway here I was at Buddy Guy's Westbury concert, he's 82, I am older. He was great but I heard great musicians before so while I enjoyed his show it was nothing like when I first saw Louis Prima at Westbury.

I was a young trumpeter because of Prima. I heard him on the radio and I fell in love with his music, his personality that was magically felt over the radio waves and most of all I fell in love with his trumpet and I wanted to be like him.

I joined Local 802 AFofM at 17 and stayed with them for 15 years.  I never became another Louis Prima but I had fun trying. But I digress. The first time I saw him was at the Paramount theater in Manhattan but he was so far away while it was great the best was the first time I saw him at Westbury. I was sitting in the last row. The performers entered from behind me but they had to go close by me down the aisle to the stage which wasn't far away, a lot closer than the Paramount's stage. The lights went down. The announcer let us know Louis Prima was about to enter. I was sitting with my love who put up with my dream to become another Louie Prima and listened to my trumpet almost every day of our marriage. Suddenly the lights went up   and Louis burst out of the door and ran down the aisle almost touched me as he went by. I was thrilled beyond words.

Full of energy he hit the stage running picked up his trumpet and played all my favorites, "Angelina (The Waitress At The Pizza)", "Robin Hood", "Just A Gigolo", all of them. He was backed by Sam Butera and  The Saints. He disbanded his big band at that time. It was the first time I had been so close to him, to hear him, to see him smile and to dream that one day we'd play a trumpet duet. Yes it was a thrill because the world, my world was still young and I was experiencing it all for the first time.

The worst part of growing old is there is very little first times left so grab on to the "now" and cherish the memories. Buddy Guy was great but he wasn't the first time in a young world.