Newcomb's Notations

Clarence Clemons, RIP

trnewcomb — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 06:09:45 +0000

I read today via the Power Line crew that Clarence Clemons, the powerful saxman who added so much to Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, has passed away at the young age of 69. I was never much of a Springsteen fan, but Clemons’ saxophone work always stood out.

Clemons had suffered a stroke last Sunday and was unable to recover. The music world has suffered a great loss with the passing of Clarence Clemons. He will be missed. Rest in peace, Big Man.

Heliconology, Part II

trnewcomb — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:34:01 +0000

I have long desired a helicon, as I have previous discussed in my post on Heliconology, Part I. I’ve been considering several instruments, including a beautiful four-valved European (from the little-known maker Ernst David) instrument from circa 1890. However, as I prefer American-made horns, I have finally settled on a Holton from roughly the same vintage as my Holton Special trombone. The trombone is 1912; the helicon is from 1917. Both are Chicago-made instruments. In fact, the helicon’s serial number identifies it as one of the very last instruments made in Chicago before the company moved to Elkhart, Indiana in 1918. I purchased the horn from the fine folks at Dillon Music in New Jersey and the horn arrived in California a week or so ago.

In appearance, the horn is silver-plated. At present, it is entirely tarnished to the point of appearing nearly black in color. I am having the instrument cleaned and brought into playing condition by the wonderful folks at Dick Akright’s Best Music Repairs. Although Dick’s guys do excellent work, I expect to put in some serious elbow grease before the horn returns to its natural beauty. But eventually I shall have some pictures to post here at Newcomb’s Notations.

The repairs themselves will involve a fair amount of work. To begin with, the horn is missing the neck, the bits, the third valve stem and button and some bracing. Dick’s crew started work on it a couple of weeks ago and they estimated approximately two weeks to do the work I am requesting, so I hope to have the instrument in playable condition before too long. I shall post more when I receive it.

Subbing with Silicon Gulch

trnewcomb — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:21:24 +0000

Dave Kawamoto is a very fine reed player. I occasionally have the pleasure of working with Dave as we both are part of Pat Dutrow’s Jazzmeisters ensemble. However, Dave also leads his own band and a couple of months ago, I took advantage of a break from my regular Tuesday night rehearsal with the East Bay Stompers to travel over to San Mateo and sit in with his Silicon Gulch Jazz Band. The band plays every Tuesday at The Swingin’ Door pub in San Mateo. It was a very enjoyable experience – Dave calls some tunes that are not played all that often. And it was a lot of fun to play some dueling trombones with the fabulous Jon Schermer. Last week, I received an email from Jon asking if I would care to substitute for him this coming Tuesday and of course I jumped at the opportunity.

So if you are interested in some good old-fashioned jazz played by a bunch of old pros, drop by The Swingin’ Door and spend a few hours with the Silicon Gulch Jazz Band this coming Tuesday, June 21, 2011.

I’m not sure yet how many (or which) horns I shall take to this gig. Certainly the little 1912 Holton Special trombone, and I might bring along my 1953 Reynolds Contempora baritone and my 2002 Jupiter slide trumpet as well. We’ll see – a lot depends on the weather. If it is nice, I’ll leave most of my horns at home and ride the motorcycle!

Upcoming Performances – June 2011

trnewcomb — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:36:53 +0000

June 2011 is looking like a fairly active month from a musical perspective. My upcoming performances are as follows:

June 11: Playing tuba with Blue Bone Express at Cafe Van Kleef in Oakland, CA
June 16: Playing trombone with East Bay Stompers at Bronco Billy’s Pizza Palace, Fremont CA
June 19: (TENTATIVE) Playing with the jammers at the New Orleans Jazz Club of Northern California monthly meeting at Champa Restaurant in El Sobrante.
June 26: Playing with the jammers at the monthly meeting of the South Bay Traditional Jazz Society, Sunnyvale Elks Lodge.

Please see my site for complete details.

Piano Lessons – Part IV

trnewcomb — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:25:50 +0000

As readers of this blog will have noticed, I have been studying piano as time allowed with a wonderful man named Philip Charles Zahorsky. He has been leading me through the mysteries of the instrument and while I never expected to become a good pianist, I have noticed some improvement during the past year or two that I have been working with Dr. Zahorsky.

Unfortunately, our association has come to an abrupt end. Phil passed away last month, at the shockingly young age of fifty-nine. I will miss him intensely – he was a perfect teacher for me and he understood my difficulty in practicing due to my other commitments. He was also very skilled at finding pieces that were good fits for my skills and my desires. And we got one well. Perhaps it was his nature – I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone, or perhaps it as because we were both low brass players. But whatever the reason, we clicked.

So it was devastating for me to learn that Phil has passed on. With his passing, my piano studies too have come to a close. With Phil it was more like a conversation between two afficianados of music and I doubt I shall ever attain that with another teacher. Nor am I really interested in looking – my studies with Phil were always a hobby and now that he has gone, I don’t really have the desire to start all over with someone else. Perhaps if my son begins to study, I might do some work again, but for now, I think this chapter has come to a close.

So I’d like to dedicate this post to Phil’s memory. I only knew him for a couple of years, but in that short time, he became a real friend. Goodbye, Phil, and thanks for everything!

RIP Ken Kennedy

trnewcomb — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:39:17 +0000

In Fresno California, there was a small, not very remarkable building located on Shaw Avenue near Highway 99. THis was the Dew Drop Inn, a bar owned by Bob Kennedy and where on Thursday nights a collection of local musicians performed traditional jazz for the jazz-loving patrons. The group was led by stride pianist and vocalist Ken Kennedy and during the time I was associated with it included such local musicians as tubist Elmer Tuschhoff, banjoist Ken Farnsworth, trumpeters Bill Murphy and Brian Taylor, trombonist Paul Keen, drummer Cliff Kennedy and Bob himself on reeds. On occasion Ken mother Wanda would favor the audience by sitting in on steel guitar as well. I first became aware of the group through leader Ken’s radio broadcasts on the old KXTC radio station advertising the Central California Traditional Jazz Society, of which he was then President. I met the group members and had the pleasure of performing with the Dew Drop Inn Jazz Band from 1988 until 1999, with a brief hiatus during my time living in Japan. In fact, the old Dew Drop Inn was where I first began learning the traditional standards and where I began to learn how to play truly improvisational jazz – we had no lead sheets, arrangements or anything other than the leader’s tempo and key signature to go by!

The years went by and I was gifted with the friendship of Ken and his entire family. When the Kennedy family formed a small family band, consisting of Bob, Wanda, Ken, Cliff and Nancy, I as fortunate enough to be invited to join as well. Those were some of my best memories – playing Western swing with the Kennedy clan. To my eternal gratitude, the entire family opened their hearts to me, and invited me into their lives. We have spent Thanksgivings, Christmases, Fourth of Julys and other occasions courtesy of the hospitality of the family and we hopefully returned the favor by performing for the enjoyment of the family and friends. Ken himself grew into one of my closest friends and even after I moved away from the area, we continued to talk and on the occasions I visited, we would spend companionable evenings with a bottle of port discussing events and reminiscing about mutual friends. When my mother passed away in 2004, it was Ken who sold her house for us.

Through the years, no matter what, the Kennedy clan – especially Bob, Wanda and Ken – have remained some of my closest friends and have been a rock that I could rely on when there were no others. They are a close-knit clan and despite the untimely deaths of both of Ken’s siblings, the family continued to thrive, blessed with loving grandchildren and great-grand-children. However, in 2009, Ken suffered a debilitating stoke that cost him the ability to speak and to play the piano. Despite the best efforts of his doctors, he was unable to recover from this and his situation was compounded when a large and very aggressive tumor was diagnosed on his lung a week or two ago. He moved into hospice care a week ago.

I was planning to go visit him today, but events have overtaken me. I received a call from Ken’s wife Pat informing me that he passed away at 10:35 this morning. I will always be grateful for all the years of friendship that we had, and wish him much joy in the Big Jam Session where he is performing with the other greats who have gone before. Ken Kennedy, it was an honor and a pleasure knowing you and I will miss your music, your company, your conversation and above all your friendship. Rest in peace, my friend. Farewell.

Learning Piano – Part III

trnewcomb — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 05:13:19 +0000

As regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I have been chronicling the results of my piano studies. These originally commenced at the local junior college, but for the past ten months or so I have been taking privately with one of the instructors. This has proven to be a very wise decision – I am progressing in he directions I most wish to go and my instructor, himself a superior brass player, has proven to be a wonderful teacher.

I have progressed through the Hanon exercises quite nicely and am now working on Numbers 7 and 8. These are coming along well and even I am quite pleased with my progress. I have also been working on triads and some rudimentary stride piano as well – I had the honor to play with a very accomplished stride player in my younger days and I myself play a great deal of tuba, thus interesting me in learning how to play bass lines on a piano. However, this is proving to be extremely difficult. My hands do not wish to work independently at this point and I am working very hard to convince them that just because the left hand is not doing the same thing as the right, I do NOT need to panic! However, I am seeing progress in this area as well.

On that topic, my most recent assignment was to work on a very basic rendition of the great pianist Bill Evans’ composition Peace Piece. This proved quite successful and brought some pretty compliments from my instructor. But more importantly, it showed me some important pointers in how to work he two hands separately and reduce tension – one of my biggest problems. I have also progressed through the Alfred Adult Book Two and am now working on a pair of tunes that will strengthen both my independent hand work and my triad work – Black Forest Polka and ‘Pomp and Circumstance’. The latter has some interesting intervals and is proving quite a challenge. But it is very good for me!

I shall continue to update this series of posts as my skills on the piano advance.

Heliconology, Part I

trnewcomb — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 03:49:11 +0000

I have long been an admirer of the helicon. Oh, you may ask, but what IS a helicon? Well, as it is defined by Grove it is from the Greek ‘helikon’, which means ‘the mountains of the Muses’. It is a valved brass instrument, similar to a sousaphone, but with a fixed, upwards-facing bell. The first known example, according to Grove, was manufactured in 1845 in Vienna and the instrument is typically made in F, E-flat and BB-flat. It was made both in three- and four-valve configurations, though three is by far the most common. In the United States, the helicon has been almost entirely superseded by the sousaphone – American manufacturers ceased production by the 1940s. It is still manufactured in Europe.

I have been looking at various instruments online, as I decide I really want to purchase one of these instruments. I do play a fair number of gigs where a lighter horn than the big Miraphone 186 would be convenient. However, the Miraphone is such a beautiful instrument I have not yet made a move. However, a friend who has a small collection recently informed me that he had one for sale. After I expressed interest, he was kind enough to allow me to borrow the horn for a week to play it and see how I like it. The horn in question is an Ernst European model circa 1890-1900, with four rotary valves. It is pitched in the key of BB-flat. After playing it today, I have one or two preliminary observations, as follows.

Positives:

Weight: The horn is very light and I could easily stand to carry it for a three or four hour performance on my feet.

Voice: The horn is also very pleasant in tone and although it is not quite as full as my Miraphone 186 (no surprise there), it has a very capable range and can speak with some authority when necessary.

Negatives:

The horn has a shoulder brace which is somewhat bent, so I suspect that it could be made a little more fitting. That being said, the helicon has a straight bit that is very limited in adjustment and as a result, I need to hold the horn in order to bring it to my embouchure and raise my shoulder somewhat, which is not the most comfortable position.

The rotary keys are not in the most comfortable position, although i suspect that if the above-mentioned aspects were adjusted, this problem might well be resolved as well.

I shall continue playing the horn for the next week and intend to use it on the upcoming performance on Saturday. shall continue this series throughout the week and will post my final thoughts at the end of the week. As well as determining if I will or will not actually purchase the instrument I am currently playing!

Performance Schedule – Update

trnewcomb — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:34:21 +0000

I have updated my upcoming performance schedule. Details can be found at my site:
TR Newcomb.

Another New Mouthpiece – Lindberg 2CL

trnewcomb — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:15:28 +0000

Despite the pouring rain, I had to make a visit to my favorite music-repair shop last weekend. I had taken my little Reynolds baritone/tenor horn in for some regular cleaning and also asked the resident brass genius if he could do a little dent-removal. We also decided to install an extra spit valve to reduce the water buildup in one of the coils. However, when I went to pick up the horn, they had forgotten to install the spit valve so they asked me to wait for a half-hour or so. OK. I went upstairs to the music shop to browse a bit.

As I was browsing, I spotted some interesting mouthpieces. Gold-plated, and a very distinctive shape. I had them pulled out for a closer look and discovered they were Christian Lindberg-designed mouthpieces. Now, I have long been an admirer of Mr. Lindberg’s virtuoso abilities, so I asked if i might try them. They kindly allowed me to borrow one of their bass trombones and I spent the next twenty minutes or so playing various models before settling on a 2CL. This one has a deep cup, a fairly rounded rim that is a bit on the narrow side, and an excellent all-around range, though not quite as good for the low pedal end as my Marcinkiewicz. I’ll be working on that. But it certainly does wonders for my mid and high range! I was playing a tone of high Ds and Fs above the staff on a bass trombone the other night and the sound quality was frankly amazing.

These mouthpieces are not cheap – they list for US $120.00 per mouthpiece, but they are definitely worth the price. Definitely recommended.