Forgive me if I gush over this outstanding session. On this freezing evening in deepest February, we played songs having to do with the hot weather, the beach, the sun, the summer, and we've never sounded better. There were a few klinkers, but overall we were focused, disciplined and played smoothly together. Ken didn't once need to make anyone stand in the corner for not paying attention or for chewing gum.

At our last session, we did songs of the 20s and 30s. I thought beforehand that it was going to be a really good jam. Well, we had fun, but musically we were all over the map. A lot of songs didn't turn out that great. This time I thought just the opposite. Isn't life strange?

There were three new people, brothers John and Tom (owner of a cool and unusual banjolele), and Jim. New people always lift my spirits. Two others, Mike and Gloria, hadn't been seen for months or a year. I had given them up for lost. "It's too bad they lost interest in the magnificent ukulele," I lamented. But no! They were merely hibernating. Welcome back to the both of you, and WendySue, too. (Is that a line from a Dr. Seuss book?)

And if I may, before I list the songs we played, shout into the void and hope that Cris, Tom, Jack, Liz, and our elusive leader Suzala are listening. Come back, brothers and sisters! All is forgiven. Do you know the fun you're missing?

Besides those I've mentioned, we had the usual suspects: Vin, Ken, Jen, Ann, Rochelle, Artie, Larry and Arlene. Jim was here for his third time and is now officially in our street gang. We'll have the official "Sewing of the Club Patch" onto his jacket at the next meeting.

After lengthy introductions, we actually started playing at a little after eight with Ken's pick of Heatwave (Linda Ronstadt). Right off the bat it sounded good. (Could it be we're actually improving?) This is a remake of the 1963 hit by Martha and the Vandellas. Ronstadt does an excellent rocking version.

Summertime (George Gershwin, 1935) was one I knew from Janis Joplin and never much liked, but it came out fine. Jen and Arlene both picked this. We were off to a solid start.

Vin picked Eddie Cochran's 1958 hit Summertime Blues. Quite fun. We got our voices as low and authoritative-sounding as possible when speaking the part of the Congressman. "I'd like to help you, son, but you're too young to vote." I knew this first in 1968 by a one-hit wonder group called Blue Cheer. Then there was the dazzling version done at Woodstock by a microphone-twirling Roger Daltrey and his leaping Who bandmate, Pete Townshend. If you haven't seen it, look it up on YouTube.

Vin's next was from McCartney and the Beatles, a kind of old-fashioned British music hall number, Good Day Sunshine. There was some tricky timing and we never got it together, but on the next, Under the Boardwalk (Drifters, 1964), we were perfect, and so impressed with ourselves that we played it twice.

From 1966 came Ann's contribution, one of the all-time greats, Sloop John B (Beach Boys). Song books and makers of sheet music sometimes put the chords over the appropriate lyrics for the first stanza, the chorus and the bridge, but then print out the rest of the verses without the chords, as if everybody is proficient enough to memorize the chords at the first go-round. On behalf of all of us beginners, I object. Is it so important to save that little bit of space on the page?

This doomed us to playing only a small piece of this fantastic song before faltering. Also, they used F Bb C7. I think a nice G C D7 would have smoothed things out. We must keep this one in mind for a future a jam. It's too good a song to have given it so little of our time.

Arlene got the next half dozen picks, starting with Sunshine on My Shoulders (Henry Deutschendorf, 1974.....you know him better as John Denver); an old singalong which was impossible to mess up, You Are My Sunshine; then the song which was the most fun to play and sing, Sunny Afternoon (Kinks, 1966). "My girlfriend's run off with my car, and gone back to her ma and pa, telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty." Leave it to Ray Davies for dark and funny lyrics.

I've heard Surfin' USA (Beach Boys, 1963) 822 times over the past 50 years and never knew, nor can I pronounce, most of the places where they surfed: Swamis, Australia's Narabine, San Onofre, Waimea Bay. John pointed out that the only Wilson brother to actually surf was Dennis, the drummer. As a point of interest, somebody's girlfriend had "a bushy bushy blonde hairdo."

Arlene's final picks were by the Beatles: I'll Follow the Sun, then Harrison's song from the Abbey Road album, Here Comes the Sun. I heard on the radio that this has been the coldest winter in New York since 1934.

Little darlin', I feel that ice

is slowly melting.

Little darlin', it seems like

years since it's been clear.

It does seem like years, but it's actually only been the entire month of February that the ground has been covered in snow and ice. This was the song that best captured the mood of the evening for me. Feel free to bow your heads in honor of St. George, who would have been 72 on Feb. 25.

I picked the next one, Summer in the City (Lovin' Spoonful, 1966). What was it about 1966 that bands produced all this good music? This one flopped, partly because of the aforementioned tendency on the part of sheet-music producers not to put chords above ALL the verses, and I suspect because the timing was quirky. We never got a fluid thing going. Oh, well. John Sebastian and the Lovin' Spoonful had a least a half dozen Top Ten hits in 1965 and 1966. We ought to try some of them.

Some months back, Vin played us a solo of Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (B.J. Thomas, 1969), and I asked him to get us the chords. Very nice. Besides being number one on the charts for a whole month, they played this in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's the scene where Paul Newman is giving a ride to the breathtakingly-beautiful Katherine Ross on this newfangled contraption, the bicycle.

As we were wrapping it up and people were putting on their jackets, Vin had a paper copy of another B.J. Thomas song, Hooked On A Feeling (1968), and we rushed through it before being thrown out of the library. Jim and Jen had to get in on the act when they heard this catchy song.

But just before this, we did Blue Hawaii for the benefit of Gloria, a lover of Hawaiian music. Gloria then came up with a possible theme for songs for our next session: women complaining about men. The first ones that come to mind are You're No Good by Linda Ronstadt, and Lesley Gore's It's My Party. (Can you believe how badly Johnny behaved with Judy?) Over the years, many men have been scoundrels with regard to women, so women do have a right to vent a bit. Let's hope the complaints are melodic and we'll have another good jam.

-- Dan.