This labor of love creates a winning combo

There is a cardiologist, a steamfitter and a sales trainer. There are also many teachers.

But one thing unites them: They are all part of an 11-member band called Tradewinds, and they managed this year -- practicing and playing part-time while balancing their full-time jobs -- to win the title of Best Cover Band on Long Island, as voted in a competition run by the weekly Long Island Press.

"We got a good thing going," said Pete Stumme, a saxophonist who is a music teacher and put the original band together a decade ago, helped incorporate it and is now president of Tradewinds. "We all share in getting the gigs. Everybody gets equal pay and has equal say."

There are lots of ways of making a few extra dollars on the side. Not many people, however, can be in a band that performs at clubs, for corporations, hospitals, municipalities and at Fire Island summer venues, playing versions of previously recorded songs from the 1950s, '60s and '70s. In the last two years, Tradewinds has had 40 to 50 gigs.

Unusual things happen to Tradewinds. Brad Sporkin, the cardiologist and the band's drummer, for example, once had to jump off a stage in Bay Shore when a woman in the audience blacked out. "Her husband was very confused," Sporkin said. "He was wondering, 'What's the drummer doing with my wife?' "

There seems to be no end to their individual workloads. Andrew Keegan, a trumpet player, works days as a steamfitter. Keyboardist Rob Fishman teaches people how to sell. Rebecca Southard, a singer, teaches music in the North Merrick school district. She is one of eight teachers in the band. "I have the best of both worlds,"  Southard said.

The glue that holds all this together is Stumme, whose late mother, Joan Stumme, encouraged his musical ambitions. She died in 2001, at age 51. "Whenever I take the stage, she is looking down at me," Stumme said.