Almost nine years after his death, we still have no public memorial to Gib Hochstrasser in the city where he spent his life and became its most beloved band leader.

His fans continue to think that's wrong.

The latest to call me about it was Regina Smith, who was a classmate of Hochstrasser's at Boise High School. She said a number of her classmates would like to donate money to commission a bronze sculpture of Hochstrasser - if there were a suitable public place to display it.

"We have the band shell named for Gene, but still nothing for Gib after all these years," she said.

That would be the late jazz pianist Gene Harris. The band shell in Julia Davis Park was named for Harris because of his stature as a world-class musician who adopted Boise as his home, and because the band shell was one of his favorite places to play.

A fitting tribute. It was a bit controversial at the time, however, because some thought it should have been named for Hochstrasser. The two died within a few months of each other.

My reason for writing this isn't to stir up old controversies. Harris was a first-rate musician and a sterling human being. It made sense to name the band shell for him. But, like so many Idahoans who knew him, I was saddened by our collective inability to come up with a similar tribute to Hochstrasser. A scholarship was named for him, but somehow that just isn't the same.

For newcomers or others unfamiliar with him, Hochstrasser was an Idaho musical legend. Even now, when big-band junkies discuss their mutual addiction almost anywhere in the state, Hochstrasser's is one of the first names to surface.

He wasn't a national name like Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman or others whose music his bands played, but he was without a close second as the Idaho face of big-band music.

He was a recipient of the Idaho Centennial Achievement Award and a member of the Idaho Hall of Fame. Harris called him Idaho's ambassador to jazz.

"Almost every great musician who grew up here or came through Boise was influenced by that man," said Tom Phelps, who spent a dozen years playing in Hochstrasser's Kings of Swing band and is now its musical director. "In a city this size, someone like him only comes along once in a generation. He was so talented, his whole life was music, and he spent his life sharing it with the community."

Jean Hochstrasser, Gib's wife of 28 years, put it more simply.

"People loved him," she said. "I work in the gift shop at St. Luke's, and people still look at my name tag and ask if I'm related to the music man."

It would be surprising if they didn't. Though a generation late for big-band music, I knew, liked and admired Hochstrasser, not just as a musician but as a man who was impossible not to like. Big egos are common in the music business, but he was a conspicuous exception. He was unfailingly friendly and had absolutely no pretensions.

The last time I saw him, he'd just finished playing for an anniversary reception at The Depot and was sitting outside on a drum case, resting. He looked tired and pale. This was just a few years before he died.

What got to me was that this was a man who was almost 70, with a lifetime of distinguished achievement, and he was still schlepping his drums and other heavy equipment across the parking lot and into his car.

When I joked that he needed a roadie, he smiled and said he didn't mind. Despite his talent and reputation, he couldn't have been more unassuming.

Maybe that's part of why we don't have a public memorial to him. He'd have been the last to push the idea.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it.

"I know a lot of people who feel that something should be named after him," Phelps said. "Not the band shell, but something of his own. Something for people to remember him by."

One possibility: a sculpture outside the Mardi Gras Ballroom, where Hochstrasser's bands played and where he went to catch the big names he idolized in his youth.

Phelps also threw out the possibility of doing something at one of his alma maters, Boise High or Boise State University.

Others have suggested the recital hall at the Velma V. Morrison Center.

Mark Hansen, the BSU person in charge of the Morrison Center Recital Hall, didn't return my call, but I floated the idea with Morrison, who danced to Hochstrasser's music at Morrison Knudsen Corp. functions and donated the center for a concert honoring him and his music.

"So many of the people who remember him are gone now," she wistfully said.

That's why it needs to happen now. That's it, exactly.

Tim Woodward: 377-6409