SEQUIM — Peggy asked Pat to dance and stepped into a love story.
It was 1991, and Peggy Heinz was watching Pat Casad waltz with another woman.
Admiring his grace, she invited him to take her onto the floor, and he instantly replied, “I’ll dance with you any day.”
That began a romance that lasted for 15 jazz-drenched years, until lymphoma ended Mr. Casad’s life July 6. He was 86.
Nickname
Mr. Casad, whose legal name was Frank, was nicknamed Pat because he was born on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1923, in Yakima. After growing up in Bremerton, he joined the Navy in 1942 and lived in Hawaii, San Diego and Colorado before moving to the Olympic Peninsula in 1972.
Peggy and Pat, as they were known to friends and fans of Mr. Casad’s jazz band, Opus One, fell in love late in life: She was 55 and he 68, and they met at the Elks Naval Lodge in Port Angeles during a dance concert.
Mr. Casad, a bandleader and baritone saxophone virtuoso, also liked to serenade his sweetheart. He’d sing “Peg O’ My Heart” to Peggy, and he’d dish out jazz for crowds of dancers at venues across the county — the Elks Lodge, the Port Angeles Senior Center, a Jazz in the Alley concert with the No Inhibitions band during the Sequim Lavender Festival last year.
In 2001, Peggy said, her husband discovered his cancer, and Opus One disbanded. But after treatment at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle sent the disease into remission, Mr. Casad went back to playing, joining the Stardust big band for gigs at the 7 Cedars Casino.
His 80th birthday party there was attended by 300 people, Peggy remembered.
“His music kept him going. I danced, and he played,” she said. “We loved and adored the music” and each other.
The Casads had five years free of cancer, but it returned about six months ago. The last time he played sax with Stardust, “he hobbled in,” Peggy said.
Mr. Casad’s music lifted the spirits — and the feet — of his fans, but his friends remember most his unflagging kindness toward the people he crossed paths with.
“I never heard him say a bad thing about anybody. He was a gentleman’s gentleman,” said Steve Lingle, a friend and fellow baritone saxman.
The minute others started to badmouth somebody, Mr. Casad would immediately say, “Maybe he was having a bad day,” or “He’s 10 times the person I am,” added Peggy.
Lingle, a member of the Olympic Express big band, has brought together an ensemble of 18 players for a celebration of Mr. Casad’s life on Aug. 8. The gathering will be at the Elks Lodge in Port Angeles, naturally, and the Pat Casad Tribute Band will play tunes from the Opus One book, Lingle promised.
“This will be a total dedication for Pat,” he said. “All of the musicians are donating their time and talent. The guys all said, ‘We’ll play anything, for Pat.'”
“Everyone,” Peggy emphasized, “is welcome.”
Love and music “kept him young, kept both of us young,” she said.
“It was just a storybook life.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
