Los Angeles, CA-September 3, 2002
SALT LAKE CITY 2nd ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL
JAZZ FESTIVAL ROCKED!
THE STORY:
One of my long time supporters in my career had been Jack Wood, a singer
and music biz type based in California. He used to live in Utah, and has
done
some gigs up there himself recently. I was thrilled when he contacted
me about performing at the Salt Lake City Jazz Festival, and even more
thrilled at the
Above: Front page of the score to "Salt Lake City Shuffle"
idea of composing a song for the debut of the Salt Lake City Jazz Orchestra
which was formerly known at the Jazz Arts of the Mountain West Big
Band.
I started working on the song in June 2002, and was still working on
the final version of it right up until I left to fly to Salt Lake City
the morning of July 5.
I spent over 100 hours working on the score (probably 70 of those hours
were because there was a computer involved lol) and I emailed the whole
song
one part at a time to Jerry Floor the Festival Director. First trumpet,
sent. Second trumpet, sent. Third trumpet, sent. Yikes. It took hours.
To make things even more fun, there was a shooting at LAX on the 4th
of July about 18 hours before I was supposed to fly out for my first road
gig in 18 months.
Yep, I was stressed.
At 4am, I was still driving to the bank, and the post office trying
to finish bills and correspondence and trying to figure out what to take
and what to pack.
At 5am, I was at the airport ready to go to catch a 6:30 am flight.
When I arrived, I went to the hotel and dropped off my clothes and went
straight to the college to teach my workshop.
The festival gig was on Sunday afternoon,
and rehearsal for it was that morning.
MEET THE MAYOR AND LARRY KING
When I got to the rehearsal for the "Salt Lake City Shuffle," Larry
King from CNN was there with his entourage including his beautiful
wife Shaun, and Rocky
Anderson-mayor of Salt Lake City-was there as well. It was a cool hang.
Right before we started to rehearse my piece, the mayor took a look
at my song and got very excited! He hadn't been told anything about it
before.
It was cool that he got so pumped up because when he introduced me
at the gig, he was really hyped about the song. In front of the audience
he said
"Rob Mullins, thank you for the honor you have brought to our city,
and this outstanding composition."
 
Above: Mayor Rocky Anderson and me.
Above: backstage before the hit.
Larry King and Rocky brought me on at the show, and it was a real treat
to perform the song I had composed for the city of Salt Lake City.
  
Above: Three pictures shot during the debut performance of the "Salt
Lake City Shuffle." World Class clarinetist Eddie Daniels is digging it
in the back.
AND NOW, THE BEST PART
A couple of weeks later, when I went back to do the Snowbird Jazz Festival,
I stopped by the Mayor's office to present him with a framed copy of the
score
of the piece. The NBC station there in Salt Lake sent a cameraman over,
and when I got back to Jerry Floor's that night, I was thrilled to see
that my song
and live video of me playing the song made it onto the evening news!
They played almost two full minutes of the song, and the anchor said at
the end
"hey, isn't that great, now we have our own song for our city."
At the end of the Snowbird gig, I got to do an interview with Steve
Williams, the local jazz guru at KUER 90.1 FM in Salt Lake City. I was
blown away
when he brought out a "Soulscape" LP I had sent him in 1985 when I
was first starting out. I signed it for him and checked out his digs. What
a great CD and LP
archive there at the station, he has everything jazz-wise you could
imagine.
Talk about cool, now that was COOL.
All the best,
Rob Mullins
9/3/02
LA, CA |
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE BAND
