I remember walking into Smith Hall music dept.  I saw Jim for the first time.  He was tall long hair and a beard. I thought he was one of the teachers and I just knew he was going to be strict and mean. I was a naive scared freshman music major.  I joined 10 o'clock jazz band and often watched and listened to 12 o'clock jazz.  I wish I would have taken pictures when Jim played his solos.  His expression when he played was just as beautiful has his music.   You could always tell when Jim was playing because you could feel the love he put in that horn.  I came to know Jim at some of J.D. Folsom's ice cream socials and he was actually the biggest teddy bear in the whole world.  He laughed and told jokes and made you feel at ease.  I will never forget how he messed with me during wind symphony.  When I had to play and trombones weren't he was either whispering something to try and crack me up or poking me in the back with his slide.   I loved the time I got to spend around Jim.  I see his name pop up on facebook now and then and I am so sad to remember such a beautiful soul is no longer here with us.  I know he is up there cracking up at something and someday we will laugh with him again.

When we lived in West Middletown PA, my girls were early grade school age.  I pulled into my driveway one day to see Jim's car parked in front of my garage.  I was so excited that he had come to visit.  

I rushed into the house, and into our family room where he was sitting in a recliner drinking a beer with my little daughter, Susie, in his lap.  As I came in the door, my sweet little girl with big innocent green eyes and long red curls looked up at me, and said, "Look what Uncle Jimmy taught me to do!"  Then, she proceeded to burp the entire alphabet in a very unladylike fashion, turned to my brother, who "high-fived" her quite gleefully.

"Lovely," I said.  "Jim, please tell me you did not give beer to my little girl."  

He reached over, grabbed the coke from the table beside him, and with a huge evil grin, held it up. I can still see that smile.  Man, I sure do miss that boy.  He was so much fun!

If you listen to Jim playing this song - the one linked to on the front - you can hear what a great player Jim was.  But the background to the story adds a little meaning to it.  The recording is from Constinesti, Romania during the Marshall Jazz Band tour in 1984 and everyone was getting pretty tired after about three weeks and we were ready to go home.  When Jim came to his short cadenza on "Bein Green" he added this whole crazy "jam" that was just fantastic.  Apparently our director, J.D. Folsom had suggested that we needed something fun to shake things up and that was what Jim came up with.  As the "jam" winds down Jim blends it back into the original song so perfectly - it seemed like it was written that way and we had rehearsed it.