A New Topic For a New Year

I have been a bit busy for the past few years, so this blog has been somewhat dormant, but as the pandemic hysteria ebbs, I think it might be time to resume my infrequent posts. And a new year (2022) brings some new topics. I confess to being a voracious reader, whose taste spans a wide variety of genres. As my musical performances have been few, I have re-entered the world of literature and have decided to add my thoughts on the books I’m reading to this little blog.

So let’s start out by stating the genres I mainly read. Historical non-fiction, historical fiction, science-fiction, Westerns, thrillers, mysteries, Japanese manga, and poetry all feature in my collection and my preferred authors include (in no particular order) Dick Francis, Ngaio Marsh, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Heinlein, Rudyard Kipling, CS Forester, Noel Gerson, Thomas Costain, Frances Hodgson, Robert E Howard, Paul Johnson, Damion Hunter, Howard Pease, and Meredith Nicholson, among many others.

These posts will discuss one or more of the books and/or series I’m currently reading, along with a brief overview of the plot and some commentary on why I enjoy it. These are not critical posts, but are intended as a personal opinion on things I like. I hope you enjoy my thoughts and these additions to my blog!

Upcoming Performances

The past few months have been quiet on the musical front, but I do have some upcoming performances. The main one takes place on July 11, as I will be playing trombone and alto trombone with the Fog City Stompers for the annual Cline Wine & Jazz Festival. We will be performing two sets – the first at 1:10 PM in the Mission venue, and the second at 3:20 PM on the Great Lawn. Both of these venues offer plenty of seating, and lots of space for dancing. Fog City also will be performing on August 9 at the monthly meeting of the Napa Dixieland Society.

I also will be playing cornet with the Mission Gold Jazz Band at the Union City Veterans’ Home on June 20. This is a private event, but you can catch the band in September at the New Orleans Jazz Society of Northern California and in October at the Napa Dixieland Society.

You can always catch me with the East Bay Stompers every third Thursday at the Irvington location of Bronco Billy’s Pizza Palace in Fremont from 7-9 PM.

Alto Trombones

I came home from work a few days ago to find a large cardboard box in my front hall. Not expecting anything, I was mildly surprised until I noticed that the box had the word ‘Trombone’ prominently displayed on the side, just under the stickers marked ‘FRAGILE’. At that point I recalled my recent conversation with the guys at The Horn Guys. They import a JinBao-made alto trombone that they then sell under the name of ‘Meister Hans Stauffer’. In the course of that discussion, i had asked to have my name placed on the list for the next shipment of alto trombones. But I had not expected it to arrive so soon!

I unpacked the horn and proceeded to try it out. My initial comments are as follows:

• The horn is very well-made. Finish is very good, and the laquer looks to have been applied in an even manner. I didn’t see any bad soldering, and the brass feels substantial – not too thin. The gold brass bell is particularly nicely made.
• The tone is very respectable – in fact it is surprisingly rich. I played it at a gig last night and was pleased with the results. Full, and dark (that is the gold brass bell), but with plenty of bark when I need it.Good replacement for the tenor in places where there isn’t much need for the bottom range, and the upper range makes it a great little solo horn.
• The horn came with a mouthpiece, but I haven’t used it yet. I first tried the Schilke 51D1D that I used on my euphonium and my tenor trombone but it proved to be too deep – the sound was a bit muddy. I then tried my Denis Wick mouthpiece and was pleased with the results, as the shallower Wick proved to produce a better overall sound.
• The positions are a challenge. I was expecting to have a relatively easy adjustment due to my experiences on EEb tuba, but this horn is really different, and I haven’t quite mastered it yet. I’ll get there, but it is a completely different experience from the tenor trombone.
• The range on this horn is…interesting. The horn bottoms out at around a low A-Ab in the octave below middle C, and then there is a complete lack of the chromatics down to the pedal tones. However, the upper end is nice – I easily attained a high D in the octave above middle C which is about the upper end of my normal range on tenor trombone without too much effort and with practice could probably do even better.

Overall, I am pleased with the horn and the price was excellent. I had The Horn Guys install a custom leadpipe from Stauffer Brass, but even with the custom leadpipe, shipping and tax, the horn came in under US $500. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who is interested in getting into alto trombone, but doesn’t want to spend the US $2-3,000 dollars that a professional model would cost.

Stencils & Brands

I have been running across some instrument brands that are unfamiliar to me. I am acquainted with such brands as American Standard (made by H.N. White) and some of the other more familiar ones, but many are completely foreign. For instance, I saw a ‘Grand Rapids Band Instrument Co’-branded horn the other day and got to wondering who actually made it.

This led me to a term I had heard many times before, which is ‘stencil horn’. But what is a stencil horn? Fortunately, the Internet gives us a great deal of ability to find the answers to these kinds of questions from the privacy of our own homes. On the invaluable Trumpet Herald forums, I ran across this extremely informative post begun by a member named Tom Turner. Mr. Turner wrote an extensive explanation of precisely what a stencil horn is. To summarize, it is a horn made by  manufacturer which is re-branded by the seller and sold under that seller’s name, instead of the actual maker’s. Later in the thread, a member named ‘farbewerk’ included a list of many of the known stencils and brands produced by the major manufacturers.  According to ‘farbewerk’, the list is as follows.

AMERICAN ARTIST: BUESCHER OR MARTIN
ACADEMY: BUESCHER
AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL: CONN
AMERICAN KNIGHT: CONN
AMERICAN STANDARD: H. N. WHITE /KING
GREAT GRETSCH AMERICAN: CONN OR BUESCHER
GRETSCH ARTIST: CONN
DICK STABILE: MARTIN
GRETSCH: CONN, MARTIN
ARTIST: BUESCHER
ARTIST BRAND: CONN
BARONET: BUESCHER?
BRUNO: CONN
BUNDY: CONN, BUESCHER, SELMER
CAPITOL BAND INSTRUMENTS: ?
CARL FISCHER: BUFFET OR BUESCHER
CAVALIER: CONN
CLEVELAND: H. N. WHITE/ KING
COLE AMERICAN: CONN
CLAXTON: CONN
CONTINENTAL: CONN
COLONIAL: CONN (MARTIN ALSO?)
COURTURIER: CONN
GRAND RAPIDS BAND INSTRUMENT COMPANY: YORK
EMBASSY: BUESCHER
KING: H. N. WHITE
HARWOOD PROFESSIONAL, JENKINS MUSIC COMPANY: CONN, BUESCHER
CONCERTONE: MARTIN
ELKHART: BUESCHER
ELKHORN: GETZEN
GLADIATOR: H. N. WHITE COMPANY
HARMONY: BUESCHER?
GRAND OPERA: CONN
INTERLOCHEN: MARTIN
INDIANA: MARTIN
JENKINS: CONN
LAVELLE: BUESCHER
LEFLEUR: CONN
LIBERTY C.K.C.: CONN
OLIVER DITSON: BUESCHER
OLYMPIAN: CONN
ORPHEUM: CONN
ORPHEUM: SUPER CONN
VELVETONE, KEACH & GREEN, PHILADELPHIA, PA: CONN
PAN AMERICAN: CONN
HARRY PEDDLER: MARTIN
SEAR AND ROEBUCK: CONN
SILVERTONE: BUESCHER
WURLITZER: MARTIN, CONN OR BUESCHER

This is undoubtedly not a complete list, but it is a good place to start – especially for some of the older manufacturers such as H.N. White, Conn, Buescher, and so forth. The only element of this original post I would take issue with is the naming of H.N. White as a stencil. In actuality, H.N. White was the company that made a number of brands, including ‘King’, ‘American Standard’, and ‘Cleveland’ so I have corrected the original list to show that.

Today of course, there are many stencils, including such brands as ‘Dillon’, ‘Schiller’, and so forth. Most of these are made by Chinese companies such as Jinbao and marketed to students or players who lack the funds for a professional horn. Some of them are good; some are not.. But the existence of multiple brands by a single manufacturer has a long history, so there is no read that things should be otherwise today. Buyer beware, as always.

Cornetting – Updates

Back in 2012, I posted about my struggles preparing for a weekend leading a jam set at a local jazz society while playing mainly cornet. Since that time, I have continued to practice – albeit somewhat infrequently – and in December of 2012 I was invited to join the Mission Gold Jazz band as the second cornet. This came as a rather large shock, since I am not what anyone would call a good cornetist. However, I tentatively said yes and commenced to work on my cornet chops.

Ten months later, I am still not sure I will ever be able to build the stamina necessary to play a three-hour gig on cornet. But my tone, my range, and my stamina have all definitely improved, and I am no longer afraid of embarrassing myself on the instrument. I am finding the band a challenge due to the instrument, but it is a challenge I am enjoying, and it seems I have been doing acceptably, so I will probably try to continue with the band if at all possible.

All About Sousaphones

As a huge fan of all things helicon (I own a 1909 Conn E-flat helicon, and would dearly love to get my hands on a B-flat version), I have long been interested in how the sousaphone came to replace the helicon in the United States. The last US-built helicon was made circa 1930, although they are made to this day in B-flat, E-flat, and F- versions in Europe.

But how did sousaphones replace helicons in the US? And when did the famous bell-front design come into existence?

The classic story is that they were the brainchild of John Philip Sousa. As it turns out, that part of the story is quite true, but there are several aspects of the classic story that are not true. To wit:

1. They were not intended as marching instruments
2. They were originally not bell-front – in fact one of Sousa’s main reasons for wanting something other than the helicon was to find an instrument that did NOT project in a specific direction.
3. The very first sousaphone was actually made by the J.W. Pepper Company circa 1895, although the C.G. Conn company was probably the most famous publicist and purveyer of these instruments.
4. The first bell-front sousaphone was built in 1908 by Conn, but Sousa himself did not use it – he preferred the original upright bell design and continued to use that one until his death in 1931.

For a lot more detail on sousaphone history, please visit Dave Detwiler’s fantastic blog Strictly Oompah, wherein he delves deeply into the history of the sousaphone.

R.I.P Bob Kennedy

One of my best friends and a valued mentor in all aspects of life passed away this morning. Clifton (Bob) Kennedy was a musician, entrepreneur, family man and all-around good guy. I first met him in October of 1987 when I first walked into his Dew Drop Inn on the corner of Shaw Avenue and Hwy 99 in Fresno.

Over the years, I’ve had the honor of working for him and with him in a variety of endeavors. As a musician, he was superb and as a friend, he is one of the best I’ve ever known. He and his family essentially took me in when my own father passed away and over the years, they have been strong and steady supporters of my efforts. When times were bad, they were like a rock to lean on and when times were good, they celebrated my successes.

Bob, I’m going to miss you. Thank you for everything and God bless you. Farewell.

Clarence Clemons, RIP

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.

Piano Lessons – Part IV

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

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, drummers Howard Weber, Doug Gilmour,  and Cliff Kennedy and Kennedy family patriarch Bob himself on reeds. On occasion Ken’s  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.