I have a 1963 Mt. Vernon Bach, which I can sometimes play at the level of an average 8th-grader. So there are no references, sorry. But it must have been very cool to play under Thad Jones.
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Rip, Where Can I Learn More about Your Trumpet playing/performances?
I'm a retired music teacher and trumpet major in college and real curious... I tried searching but couldn't find info. about your trumpet playing/performance and group (s). I've seen smatterings of comments about your playing, embouchure comments, etc. but couldn't find anything specific. Would you point me in the right thread/post direction? Hope you found the low brass player you were looking for awhile back.
I play a Bach Strad. but once had a beautiful French Selmer that unfortunately got dropped in it's gig bag onto a cement rehearsal room floor and the 2nd valve (leakage) was never the same.
Thad Jones was my big band instructor in college and he often brought his brothers Hank, Elvin and Mel Lewis to rehearsals and they sat in!
I never learned to improvise (except on bass guitar) as I'd been a Classical player reading fly specks for too long but I could play the charts. Lew Soloff
If your group(s) have a website, etc. Please let me know? These days living on an island, I only get to play the occasional duet with another trumpet guy. Mostly do recording session side man stuff on 6 string bass these days. (Project/barn and cellar workshop studios). No big time.
You're a double inspiration for me, weights/strength and a brass guy!
TMPHBITEU
I have a 1963 Mt. Vernon Bach, which I can sometimes play at the level of an average 8th-grader. So there are no references, sorry. But it must have been very cool to play under Thad Jones.
Member
Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe
Thanks Mark. I thought fer sure, I'd seen references to your playing with a brass group (informal friends?-brass party?)
Anyway, yes it was very cool to get to know Thad and his brothers. Elvin called me "Elevator Man" everytime he saw me
because I'd helped him unload his drum kit from a truck with a hydraulic lift gate. I saw him only months before he passed at a club in Seattle and when I shook his hand and talked about his playing with Thad's students back in '73 or '74 he looked me up and down and said...."Hey, Elevator Man-is that you?" I couldn't believe it after 40 years!
Other "fond" memories were of Lew Soloff form Blood Sweat and Tears and John Faddis (later Dizzy Gillespie's protege' and keeper of the flame) sat next to me in the trumpet section and proceeded to terrify us with their key chains which were "animated" little guys with monkeys jerking off!!!! As if their playing and screech ranges didn't already intimidate us enough!
It was a very telling experience when I went to a cocktail party after a concert at Lincoln Center in N.Y.C. and saw Lew talking to the guest classical trumpet artiste in an almost apologetic manner that he was (only) the trumpet player in Blood Sweat and Tears. It was the lst time I realized that no matter how amazing you are you can still feel sort of diminished in the company of someone else when he in my opinion had nothing to apologize for.
Anyway, unfortunately except for teaching K-12 Music (Yes Mr. Holland's Opus is a true story ;-) I moved out to the wild west and out of the cities so never kept up my horn chops and playing much.
Jim
TMPHBITEU
Soloff died a couple of years ago. Amazing player. It would have been fun to meet him.
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