Left, a young Frank Orchard; Jeff on Frank's shoulders; Trombonist Vic Dickenson dropped by the house. For My Father        IN THE 1950s WHEN I WAS A BOY, my parents rented a house in Rock Hill, Missouri. Touring musicians would always come over to our house when travelling through St. Louis. Trombonist Vic Dickenson gave me a tube of Top Brass hair cream. My father, Frank Orchard, told me I got the the gift because Vic was the top brassman, which was the gospel truth. My mother laughed and told me it was because I had white hair. After Vic left I saw my father cry for the first time. I asked him what was wrong. He told me that Vic had said to him, "If something happens to me where I can't play my horn will you let me drive your car ?"      My father's family was rich. His father was a big shot with Gardner Advertising in Chicago. His mother was a Daughter of the Mayflower (on one side) and a Daughter of Virginia (on the other). During the Great Depression they lived in a mansion in Bronxville, New York with sleep-in servants, where my father, above, was photographed. They also had a big summer place on Cape Cod. Teenaged Frank Orchard had money for a turntable and money to buy what were then called “race records” -- an early twentieth century term for sound recordings of music performed by African Americans and Creoles.     When my father heard Louis Armstrong the scales fell from his eyes and the ice melted from his heart. When my father’s parents learned that he was going to New Orleans with his hot jazz combo to play gigs he had already lined up, they had him committed to Grasslands Mental Hospital where he wasn’t allowed to play music. While there, he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. A year later, they released him. My father matriculated at Johns Hopkins and Julliard. His parents disowned him. He got a job driving a truck. He developed a Cuban reefer connection down on the docks. He’d take his horn to Harlem. His reefer got him in the door and up on the stand. His playing took it from there.     My parents and I lived with wolves at the door. When my father died his material legacy to me was his horn and exactly enough money from the Musicians Union, Local 802, to dispose of his remains legally on the Island of Manhattan.    You're listening to me playing "My Funny Valentine," written by Rogers and Hart.