Hi Sherry,

Thank you! You see right through me, don't you? Whenever I want to just mellow out, I always play this piece on my acoustic grand (as a ballad). That is what prompted me to do this piece. I've always loved this song. "Send In The Clowns" puts me into the same kind of mood as well as "The Summer knows". I can remember riding my three wheel bike in the summer of '42. Wow! That makes me ancient.

quote: "Dare I ask? .... Have you worked this up with JABB or GPO? I might give it a try with GPO and see what that sounds like - the muted trumpet on my Chaos"

I didn't do it with JABB. I kind of struggled with that but I wanted to use the modulation wheel for the vibrato for the trumpet and could not use that with JABB. I may try it with JABB later and remove the mod wheel vibrato. I had trouble with the stuck notes too, I did a ton of editing throughout and I got tired. The pizzicato strings takes that out, but it doesn't ring long enough and is a little choppy. I did so much volume changing that I completely forgot about the drum staff, and it is a little too loud. I'll have to play with that, too.
I wish my old trumpet player could hear it. I lost touch with him about 15 years ago. I last saw him in Vegas. He had a group called "Dixie Six" at The Four Seasons in the old section of Las Vegas. He was there for about 25 years. I understand he finally left Vegas and bought a home on a lake in some mid western city. He should be right at home there. We once sat on a hill overlooking a lake in Baltimore and played our horns listening to the echo bouncing off the big marble homes and coming back across the lake. You could actually stop playing and hear yourself. But it was 3:00 a.m. and the police chased us, so that ended that.

Cheers,
Fred