<Begin Segment 14>

RP: So you left, you left playing music for quite some time.

YS: Yeah, I... when I moved down here from L.A. after -- 'cause I was playing when I was up there in L.A. -- I didn't know anybody here. I didn't have any connections, so for about twenty-five, thirty years I didn't even touch my horn.

RP: And so what brought you back to it?

YS: Gordon. Gordon, see, Gordon, he was here at the UC San Diego on, as a research professor of cancer research. And he called me and made a... 'cause he was living in La Jolla. He moved. And so I was taking care of his family and then but Gordon says, "Hey, Yo, you want to get back to playin'?" He says a guy... because being in cancer research he was dealing with the medical school and there was a lot of the medical professors are, they were ex-musicians and they wanted to start playing. And he said, "Yo, you want to start... you want to start playing?" I said, "Okay. I still have my horns." 'Cause my nephew was using my horns up there. And I said, "Okay." And that's how I got back into it. I didn't think I'd ever get back into it, you know, but I just kept my horns. And that's how I got back. But I sure forgot a lot of things, though. During that period of time... so certain things I just totally lost. But my reading didn't go away. I could still read. [Laughs]

RP: So you played for a while with this, with this band here.

YS: Do I...

RP: You played for a while with this band that, mostly the medical folks?

YS: Yeah, oh yeah, I played with them a while and then you get to know other musicians that played with other bands and you know how your name gets around. Then they'll call you, "Hey, we need a, we need a third alto or second alto or baritone." They'll call you. And I say, "Okay, yeah. Let me know where to show up or what rehearsal." And that's where I got back into it again.

RP: And so you're currently involved with...

YS: Right now currently I'm involved with five bands. I go, I make about five rehearsals a week.

RP: Well, can you just give us kind of a brief summary of these different bands? Who are they?

YS: Well, they're all big bands. The smallest band that... let's see, five, three, three, and three. So that's fourteen piece. You know like three trumpets, three trombones, five saxes, and three rhythm, bass piano and drums. And the other, the other bands have usually a full rhythm section and there's four trumpets, four trombones, and five saxes. And a vocalist, you know, some bands have a vocal. Let's see, two of the bands, two of the bands... oh, and then I'm with a with an adult education band up here at Mesa College. They're all us old guys but we all love to play so, you know. And that's a big band also, either four or five trumpets, four bones, and full rhythm section, and five, five saxes and the smallest group I play with is four saxes, four brass, and three, three rhythms, so that's seven, eleven piece. Now that band is written for, the charts are written that arrangement and it's got an altogether different sound. And that band is fun to play with sort of, 'cause it's, the charts are tough, yeah. And this guy used... the guy that writes for, a lot of his arrangements are guys that I think he's written for I think a lot of these big... for Kenton for one thing. You know, he's written for Kenton and maybe for Dorsey and some of the other, the bigger, well-known bands, big bands. But anyway, I'm having fun.

RP: You sure are. Speaking of Stan Kenton, you got a chance to see him while he was touring through the Midwest?

YS: Oh, yeah, when I was back in Iowa whenever he'd come through, if we'd, if we weren't playing we'd be right there, right in front of the bandstand listening to it for hours.

RP: He was a pretty young guy himself at that time.

YS: Oh yeah. I saw him, first time I saw him was in 1944. I don't know if you're familiar with the tenor man Stan Getz? Stan Getz? He was about nineteen years old or eighteen years old at that time when I first saw him, but what a band. But you know the most exciting band that I ever watched was a Woody Herman band. He had the different, first herd, second herd, third herd? Wow, what a band they had, you know.

RP: Well that's great. I must have known that sort of psychically. I brought you that CD of Woody Herman.

YS: Oh, yeah.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.