Hobbies

Cub Scouts

I do a bunch of stuff for Cub scouts. For our Webelo Cub Scout den, I have organized service projects such as Leave No Trace. I've also been a counselor responsible for our webelo God & Family program.

For Cub Scout Pack 130, I'm an Assistant Cubmaster and a popcorn fundraising coordinator. My favorite job with scouts, more than any of the others, is organizing pack overnight outings every couple of months on navy ships such as the USS Texas Battleship, USS Lexington Air Craft Carrier, USS Cavalla Submarine, and USS Kidd Destroyer.

For the Golden Arrow District I am the program director for Golden Arrow District Twilight Camp 2008 and a staff member of the District Roundtable. This is far and away the most relevant thing I do.

Music

I've been a union musician for thirty odd years now. I joined the union (Houston Professional Musician's Association, Local 65-699) back in '74 when I was playing in the penthouse club of the Warwick Hotel near Rice University, the Shamrock Hotel's Emerald Ballroom, and the Rice Hotel downtown, Those were the days when swing music was still a staple of high society and hotel ballrooms.

I play upright and electric bass. I've worked with most of the jazz musicians and pretty much every big band in Houston. I spent a year and a half touring the US, Brazil and Japan with the Glenn Miller Orchestra back in the early '80s. One of the most fun moments on the road was playing with the Mills Brothers in New York. Backstage, just before we went on, they'd sing mildly risque songs from the '30s, and have the entire band in stitches.

One of the most fun things I've done locally was a tribute to John Coltrane, which got some press, as excerpted from "Jazzmen salute Coltrane, Hartman" by Rick Mitchell, Houston Chronicle, 10/30/1997:

"But those who dropped into Cezanne one night last month might have gotten a little more than they bargained for."

"Witt announced that the group would play Coltrane's ``A Love Supreme,'' a four-movement suite that ranks as one of the great landmarks of avant-garde jazz."

"The piece has been covered by other jazz artists, but almost always in condensed form. Witt's quartet of pianist Robert Boston, bassist Richard Murphy and drummer Keith Karnaky delivered it in its 40-minute entirety, repeatedly building to climaxes that found Witt ecstatically screaming through his horn and Karnaky thundering on the drums like a man possessed."

"As the piece roared to a finish, many of the patrons in the small and normally sedate upstairs jazz room were on their feet, shouting encouragement to the musicians. It was the kind of galvanic eruption that occurs all too infrequently on the jaded local jazz scene."