Austin's Senior Recital

My baby brother is now 24 and just about to graduate from college! I can't believe he's this grown up. On April 22nd, we had the wonderful opportunity to attend his senior recital at SFSU - Austin's a jazz drummer, and has been drumming for about 14 years now. He's planning to move to New York in the fall, so I'm already getting teary at the thought of being 3,000 miles away from my bro.



The concert was great. He played with two different groups - the first one being his roommates from his "jazz frat house", as they like calling his shared house in the Sunset district. Then he was joined by some other local musicians and one of his professors. Good stuff! My favorite was the song Austin wrote and arranged, called "Leaves", which is what I have on the slideshow for you
here.



The whole show was great, but my favorite moment might've been when Austin surprised us by bringing one of the middle school Drum Corps he had been working with out. They played a medley of songs that Austin had arranged (alhough not chosen - I think their teacher chose these), including: "School's Out For Summer" by Alice Cooper; "No Quarter" by Led Zeppelin; and "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd. ?! It was pretty amazingly awesome, and the kids were adorable in that they were terrified to look out at us. I've never seen real live school children sing "we don't need no education" before! But they seemed pretty naughtily happy to sing that part.



Anyway, it was a great day with lots of family. Congratulations, Austin!

My mom was busy inside getting ready, so here's my dad with one of my auntie-types, Constance (well, technically my mom's first cousin, but... more like an aunt to me):



Doesn't Austin look kind of retro and jazzy in his suit with his vintage kit?





It was a gorgeous day in the Sunset and I loved the vintage style of the letters on the Arts building:



Finally, the basset hound that Austin asked for one year (Opal, who's now pushing 11 or 12 years) was there in spirit at least:



Please check out the slideshow for part of his song, recorded that very afternoon! Click here for a total multimedia experience :)