Bill and I always got along. I think we just liked the same things and never had to go thru the making-friends ritual. One of the things we liked was to stay late on the St. Louis levee when most had gone to bed and play until the very wee hours of the morning. This shot was about 3 AM. It was so dark down there that I couldn't see to focus. I'd catch a street light on my lens and preset my distance, then concentrate on framing and moment. The flash was just a matter of trust. This one was a beauty.

Bill had a tough job with the St. Louis Ragtimers, not only because he was in the lead without a trombone for three decades, but because the band played a mix of Traditional Jazz and Ragtime...two entirely different disciplines. Across the years Mason also worked up some mean solos on harmonica, an instrument considered alien to those musics. But it worked just great for the Ragtimers. Can't praise this man enough...as a jazzman, as a ragtimer, and as a human being. GCW