On October 23, 2017, over 130 friends and family of Austin musician/engineer Paul Hollis celebrated his retirement from his technology day job.

I don’t know how Paul’s wife Jeanne (and 130 of his friends) managed to keep the party secret from Paul, but apparently we did, as he had no idea what was in store when he stepped through the door at the Highball.

 

He’s not retiring from music, though, as he performs with at least 4 active bands in the Austin area on a regular basis.  He worked for Motorola, Analog Devices, MediaTek, and Broadcom in the semiconductor field for many decades.  Because of his dual careers, the attendees represented what I remember as the old, cooler, hipper Austin of the 80’s and 90’s:  technology innovators and people passionate about music.   Many musicians attended – not only Austin players but some from Paul’s younger days in Florida.

Seven bands were represented, many with shared members, with many guests, as many of us who were never full time members of one (or more) of Paul’s bands have filled in with one band (or three, in my case) at one time or another.

As one musician attendee remarked “it’s like every gig I’ve played in the last 10 years all in one night.”

The party was held at the Highball lounge run by the Alamo Drafthouse. It’s located in a shopping center where the Austin musician’s landmark Ray Henning’s Heart of Texas music store used to be.

Paul’s band Java Jazz was the Sunday brunch band at Nutty Brown in Oak Hill for 11 years. During that time I sat in with them many times, returning even after I moved to College Station.

Here’s some vintage Java Jazz video from 2005 at Nutty Brown:

After I finished my guest spot with Java Jazz, I grabbed a good seat near the stage, and live streamed some of the bands using Facebook Live.

Java Jazz playing live at the party

 

 

S7ven laying down the fusion funk

Gumbo Ya Ya bringing the New Orleans groove

Electron Donors playing some tasty medleys of rock classics

Lots of great music. If you are in the Austin area, come out and see all these excellent bands.