Trumpeter Bushnell Still Playing

DENVER (AP) - After fifty years, Dean Bushnell is still tapping his toes and tooting his horn.

Bushnell, the trumpeter who still leads the Dean Bushnell Orchestra 50 years after he assembled it, joined with former band members and other artists for a reunion Sunday.

Bushnell started the band while a student at the University of Northern Colorado. Many musicians who started with the orchestra later played with Stan Kenton, Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey.
The band still plays at least 50 times a year.

"Fifty years of anything is quite an accomplishment,'' Denver Mayor Wellington Webb said. "And for half a decade, this is an orchestra who has helped to keep jazz and swing alive and has also kept hundreds of Denver's musicians employed.''