The mid 1950's was a terrible time for popular music. Rock was not yet a true music form and the great folk singers of the 60's hadn't emerged yet. So the tunes on the Top-10 charts were such stellar songs as "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?" and "The Tennessee Waltz." At the time (1955) I was a junior at Washington High in L.A., which at that time was pretty much a school for students from white working-class families. I wrote an article every week in the school paper on music, in which I tried to promote jazz and was always taking cracks at the popular singers of the time (Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, Patti Page, etc.) Very few students at my school seemed interested in jazz. The few who were interested were those who played jazz.

In the middle of my junior year I had the idea of trying to bring a good jazz group to the school to perform an assembly, to see if that could raise student consciousness a bit about what I felt was the coolest music around. The Student Council (of which I was a member) gave me the go ahead to set up such a concert. But it had to cover the costs of the musicians. I tried to get Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse Allstars (with Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Giuffre) who were performing every weekend at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, but they were unavailable for this kind of booking. But the agent who booked them told me he had another group that was available - Buddy DeFranco, and he could get his group for $250. I was delighted. I really liked DeFranco.

So I spent the next few weeks putting posters up in every conceivable place on campus. The charge was 50-cents.

As it turned out, so many people bought tickets that we had to have two assemblies: back to back 45 minute concerts during an extended lunch-hour. Out of a student body of 1500 students, 1100 attended the concerts, which exceeded my wildest expectations. I think they came more as a way to get a longer lunch hour than for any other reason (and out of curiosity. It was the first time anyone had put on an assembly with an admission at Washington).

DeFranco was great. He came with a quintet, including Barney Kessel on guitar (I forget who else was backing him). He was a very personable guy and talked to me for several minutes before the concert. I then had the pleasure (thrill for a 16-year-old) of introducing his group at both concerts.

They wailed, and the kids loved it, shouting until they played 3 encores at each concert. Both concerts went at least 15 minutes over the time scheduled.

That was a very memorable day in what was otherwise a pretty drab high school experience for me, and I'd like to think that a few students that day got turned on to jazz and bought something other than Patti Page or Eddie Fisher the next time they went to the record store.

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