Vanessa Coffman is Our Newest Floodster

 Our dear friend Vanessa Coffman turns 20 years old today and we’re happy to announced that going into this new decade, she is also the newest Floodster. At the end of The Flood’s rehearsal last night, we were thrilled that Vanessa accepted our invitation to join the band.  Now, regular listeners know that Vanessa — we call her Veezy around here, incidentally — started sitting in with the band last winter. It was former Floodster Stew Schneider who first called our attention to this wonderful young player. During the holiday season last year, Stew called to say, “Man, you’ve got to drop everything and come hear this young woman play tenor sax!”  It was in January — exactly nine months ago today, in fact — that she took in her first Flood session. Everyone in the room was immediately wowed, and she’s been coming back ever since. Of course, the horrid COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to the weekly rehearsal in March, but we stayed in touch with her during the six-month shutdown and when rehearsals resumed last month, she was right there in the mix. In fact, during the awful year of loneliness and loss, Veezy Coffman has been a bright light, enhancing everything we play with her beautiful tone and her imaginative musical ideas. Take a listen to this. From a last night’s rehearsal, it’s a bit of Veezy’s work on “Summertime.” Happy birthday, Veezy Coffman — welcome to the Family Flood!