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Just real music: Classic jazz band to jam in Palm Harbor

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BY CHERYL BENTLEY

THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: December 13, 2008

Frank Greenstreet was impressed. Dr. James Adkins had three double bell euphoniums.

A cousin of the brass instrument euphonium, the double bell has a second bell that can create additional sounds.

"I told him I had only seen three double bell euphoniums in my entire life, and he had all three," Greenstreet recalled.

But Adkins had another surprise for Greenstreet. "He told me he had five," Greenstreet said.

The 78-year-old veteran jazzman Greenstreet has since lost track of all of Adkins' other varied musical instruments. "He plays all kinds of strange instruments."

At 61, Adkins, a Palm Harbor ear, nose and throat physician, is the baby in the Clam Bayou Jazz Band, the group Greenstreet founded in 1971 and named after the bayou between St. Petersburg and Gulfport.

Adkins has played with the Springfield, Va.-based Buck Creek Jazz Band and the Funky Butt Jazz Band in New Orleans.

"I keep telling him if he quit moonlighting as a doctor and paid attention to his playing, he'd be a good musician," Greenstreet joked.

The Clam Bayou band will give its monthly Palm Harbor Library concert Sunday, Dec. 14, at Crystal Cove Community Church in Palm Harbor, the location of the library's concerts during renovation of the library.

December's concert is "Christmas Dixieland Style."

At 85, clarinet and tenor saxophone player Bert Kempe is the oldest member of Clam Bayou.

Kempe played in "Tars and Spars," the World War II Coast Guard musical recruitment show named after Coast Guard terms for its male and female members.

Other members are bass player Wes Bowen, who played with Woody Herman and Gene Krupa; and trumpet player Tom Miller, who played with Airmen of Note, the Air Force's premiere jazz big band.

Bass player Bob Glascock has played with the Largo-based Garden Avenue Seven Jazz Band.

Drummer Greenstreet is a mere 78. He joined the American Federation of Musicians in 1948 and was sworn in by Martin J. Emerson, who would later become president of the International Federation of Musicians, a post he would hold until 1991.

He got his first taste of the drums, an instrument he is still playing, as a 12 year old living in Washington, D.C. His teacher also taught Louie Bellson. Bellson would later become a bandleader, composer and husband of singer/actress Pearl Bailey.

Greenstreet is typically laconic about why he chose the drums. "Why do kids want to do anything?"

There was never a question about the style of music he would choose.

Greenstreet loved Dixieland and jazz. "It was the music of the era I grew up in."

After playing in Washington bands, Greenstreet moved to St. Petersburg in 1960.

He built duplexes, had rental units, and tried his hand at other assorted jobs, but he never gave up on his music.

Greenstreet has always stuck to his jazz roots.

"We don't play country, rap, rock," he noted. "Just real music."

Clam Bayou's venues reads like a list of bay area events. The band has played at Super Bowl XVIII, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and events sponsored by numerous bay area cities.

The band has also performed in Nashville, New York City, Atlanta and New Orleans.

Greenstreet is noted for educating his audience about the numbers his group plays.

How does the audience respond?

"Pretty good," he said. "We always fill the place."

The Lowdown

The free concert is 3 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 14, Crystal Cove Community Church, 6900 C.R. 95, Palm Harbor.

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