~_tKOM THE STEWART EDUCATION FOUN ¥ ; « an “. 2 + With day and night events most days of the week, the Ogden Amphetheater is a happening place this summer. June 6 Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers will be gracing the stage once again with their powerhouse zydeco performance. Cure your summertime By Ryan Larsen Get to know Ogden again and forget about that vacation this summer. The Ogden Amphitheater provides plenty of free events to keep you and your family busy all summer long. Right here in town the Ogden Amphitheater concert series offers performances from musical talent like The Osmonds 2" Generation, the sons of 70’s super star Alan Osmond of the musical group The Osmonds. Also appearing will.be Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers, who have appeared on Good Morning America and the Travel Channel, bringing some rockin’ zydeco music to Ogden. Can’t wait till evening to listen to live music? Wednesdays at noon will be music in the park, a great way to relax during your lunch break. Music isn’t the only thing the theatre has to offer this summer. The Ogden Amphitheater will host comedian Justin Hewlett and his myriad of funny impressions of popular stars like Jim www. Ogden com blues at this years Ogden amphitheater events Carrey, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Louie Armstrong, Nat King Cole, and even Led Zeppelin. For the kids beginning June 15 the amphitheater has Monday Nights at the Movies planned. Families can come and enjoy movies like Paul Blart Mall Cop, Kung Fu Panda and Iron Man while relaxing under the summer night sky. Not only do people get to see hit movies under the stars, but the best part is these movies are free. And how can the Amphitheater forget this city’s heritage? This year marks the 75" anniversary of Ogden’s Pioneer Days. On July 18 at the Municipal Gardens surrounding the amphitheater there will be wild-west shootouts, stagecoach rides, an antique tractor show and the Jupiter Train. Ogden City owns and operates the Ogden Amphitheater and its surrounding Municipal Garden, but for about the last six years it has contracted out to Downtown Ogden, Inc. for booking and organizing events and making sure the amphitheater’s 2,200 seats are not under utilized. Dan Musgrave is the President of Downtown Ogden, Inc., a not-for-profit businessman’s alliance. Since taking over they have helped bring 230,000 visitors to the Ogden Amphitheater by having over 200 events a year with 90 percent of them being free to the public. The building of the amphitheater is part of the revitalization of Ogden, which includes the Junction and the Ogden River project, said Musgrave. 25" Street is historic, and it was a logical spot to put a venue like an amphitheater,” he continued. The original idea was to have a central place in Ogden where local events could be held and having many of those events free to the public is a sort of community service to attract people to Ogden, he said. More people in Ogden means happier more stable merchants and it is a plus economically. “Layton and Sandy have an amphitheater Our Beat ts the Heart of Ogden like ours, but ours is the busiest outdoor amphitheater in the state, while the others stay vacant. We love to have it opef#tnd the lights on six days a week and some Sundays—morning, noon and night,” Musgrave said. With the Ogden area being more diverse than some of the surrounding areas, Musgrave says that they try to cater to a wide range of markets and make it fun for everyone. This is evident in the full range of events scheduled for the summer listed at Www.ocae.org. Currently the city has plans to install some shade screens. The 50-foot-tall screens will be permanent fixtures on the west side of the amphitheater and will help shade the amphitheater during events scheduled for the day and around sunset. There are also designs for expansion of the Ogden Amphitheater as need arises. Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers kick off the summer fun at 7 p.m. on June 6. tep into jazz man Joe McQueen’s garage, and you’|l see a wheelchair, several pairs of crutches and a wheeled walker — not surprising, of course, as Ogden’s legendary sax player turned 90 last month. Except, the mobility aids aren’t his. They belonged to a friend who passed away not long ago. McQueen merely is storing them at the request of his late pal’s niece. The hand-held free weights, exercise ball, stationary bicycle and treadmill sitting in the garage and an adjoining shed — these are the tools of McQueen’s advancing years. Those, along with his tenor saxophone, of course. “That’s the reason I exercise all the time. You don’t stay in shape, you can’t do it,” McQueen said, referring to the instrument that has made him an O-Town institution since 6 1945. The “shed” in which McQueen does his exercises is a concrete block building that he constructed adjoining the free-standing garage behind his home. In addition to being an accomplished saxophone player, McQueen also was a crack auto mechanic in his day and taught classes on auto repair at Weber State University until he retired. The garage is where he keeps his car repairing stuff. The shed holds the trappings of the rest of his life — including a piano and a guitar he has never learned to play and a painting that a well-meaning Ogden artist created back in 1946. “She gave me six fingers,” McQueen noted. He was sitting on a stool topped with a seat that turned Our Beat ts the Heart of Ogden as he swiveled his body back and forth at the waist. “Do this 200 times a day, and it gets rid of this right here,” McQueen said, slapping his mid-section. “That’s ~ why I don’t have a stomach like some guys.” It’s true. He doesn’t. In fact, nine days before his 90" birthday, McQueen didn’t look much like someone who has lived almost a century. _ He doesn’t act like it either. In addition to what remains an active performing schedule, McQueen works five days a week as a senior companion, driving his 11 clients to doctors’ appointments, shopping for them or taking them to the store and performing any other duties that help them continue living at home. All but one of his clients is younger than he, and 21 www. OgdenInéte.com Heart af Uades fatr On Siayadel PAY y re Midi dh di chilncticdiininsdidibiintislasianis a) ependent ee I Local Jazz Legend celebrates live or "e) 7 ae Sn ig, i CP a A six-fingered painting from 1946 and an article from 1992 a few of the items tucked away in Joe McQueen’s room. (left) McQueen plays a recent gig at Union Station. (center) McQueen circa 1996 (right) of them have passed on since he started working for the program 10 years ago. We all should be as lucky to live so long and so well. Drawing on his vast experience and with an eye toward the future, McQueen answered a few questions on becoming a nonagenarian: minutes — you couldn’t get in there sideways. People came from —I don’t know where all those people came from.” Ogden Indie: What is best about turning 90? McQueen: “Oh, my yes. It is better. When I moved here it was almost like the Deep South. And I just refused to play in places that wouldn’t let black people in. Anna Belle (Mattson) had a club, and I could play down there. She never wanted it to be segregated.” McQueen: “I’m glad I’m still able to get around and. do the things I want to do. You’ve got to stay in shape. I’m 90 years old because I take care of myself. I try to eat right, and I exercise.” Ogden Indie: What inspired you to become a senior companion? Ogden Indie: Ogden has changed a lot since you moved here. Has it been for the better? May 30, Birthday Celebration, at June McQueen: “I’ve always wanted to help people. We take them to the store and things. It helps keep people out of nursing homes and living on their own.” Ogden Indie: What kind of music do you listen to when nobody else is around? McQueen: “Jazz. I don’t like all that rock ‘n’ roll and all that (um, ‘stuff’) they’re playing now.” At this point, McQueen recalled a gig he played in Idaho Falls in 1962. He went into a club where a guy he knew was performing, and the fellow was playing . country-western music. He asked McQueen to sit in, and McQueen tried to say no. But eventually, he relented. And ultimately, McQueen played it his way. “You play the head, then turn it into blues, and then play the hell out of it,” McQueen said. “Boy, by the time we got through playing — I had been playing maybe 40 www. OgdenIndte.com the Wine Cellar 10, Joe McQueen Quartet, at Union Station © Joe in June, joe McQueen pictures, at Universe City Gallery. Mattson ran the Porters and Waiters Club downtown— named for the jobs most often filled by black workers durin the time. Mattson and McQueen have long been recognized as civil rights champions who, among other accomplishments, led the way for the integration of Ogden’s 25" Street entertainment scene. Ogden Indie: Technology— that’s something that has changed a lot in your lifetime .. McQueen: “Yeah, yeah. It’s a funny thing. I have a Web site, but I do not have a computer — and I don’t intend to _ buy one. I’m not interested in all that crap. I got enough of my time to be taken up with other things, other than that. I’ve got a cell phone. I’ve got to have that because of when I’m with my clients. We’ve got TVs, and I’ve got a DVD player, CD players and record players and stuff. I can even play 8-track tapes.” all that Yes, he can. The 8-track player is out in his garage, among the mementos one collects over a life spanning nine decades. It is like a museum in which each item’s significance is filed away in the curator’s memory. For example, it would be easy to overlook the tan carlength wool woman’s coat carefully draped across one end of a sofa and the plastic grocery bag containing a pair of gold ballet-style slippers lying near the other end. They are the coat and shoes Mattson was wearing last November when the longtime friends were involved in a car crash near Wendover in which Mattson died. “T’m still not over it,” McQueen said quietly as he picked up the bag containing her shoes. “I'll never get over it.” Still, McQueen says the good times have outnumbered the bad. He and his wife Thelma will celebrate their 65" Ogden Indie: Are there any instruments besides the sax - wedding anniversary on the 10" of this month. He has , that you wish you had learned to play? beaten cancer twice. The couple owns their central Ogden home outright and “have a little put back” to sustain them. McQueen: “That.” (He pointed at an old upright piano The toughest thing about being 90 is, well, being 90. tucked along the wall of the shed.) “I’ve got me a piano, “That’s the only thing about getting old — all of the but I don’t peta how to play it. = I don’t have the time people my age are gone,” McQueen said. “I don’t have to do it, now.” any of the old guys around me anymore.” Our Beat ts the Heart of Ogden