One of the finest trumpet players alive today, Jon Faddis, talks about how your stance is extremely important when approaching the upper register. He states, that you should stand as tall as possible, as if someone had a string pulling your head up. I couldn’t agree more, if I try to play in any other stance, my range and endurance suffer. My thought on why this is so has to do with how our breathing apparatus functions. My approach also involves pulling the chest up high and the feet placed a bit further than shoulder width apart, with a slightly squatty stance as well. Jon also stresses the importance of being able to hear in your head what it is you want to play in the upper register. Moreover, he emphasizes listening to other masters of the stratosphere, such as Maynard Ferguson and Dizzy Gillespie. Of course, the TrumpetDude strongly suggests you listen to Jon Faddis!

The great teacher, Arnold Jacobs added to this aspect of playing by focusing on the size of the air column too. He said in almost every instance when players came to him wanting help with their embouchure, he would end up pointing out that they simply were not supporting the embouchure with enough air, that the air column was too thin. This brings me to my other aspect of playing well. Our throats must be open WIDE!! An open throat is imperative to achieving the large air column necessary to play well in any register, to have endurance, and of course, to be able to play high notes. Much of this, of course, is MENTAL. Trumpet playing is a physical sport but one that is done with more mental energy than say weight lifting. If the mind is not right, the body will NOT follow. Sometimes we are just too tired to concentrate properly, other times we are just too UPTIGHT. When we are uptight, because of performance anxiety or just because we are stressed about whatever, our throats close up, it’s just a natural bodily reaction to the stress. So, one approach that Arnold Jacobs taught was to think and ingrain in your head OH for inhalation and TOH for exhalation without any hesitation in between. OK, what do the chops do? They vibrate and the mouthpiece captures the vibrations. Nothing more. Nothing less.

In sum, to play trumpet well, you must have your MIND right, your AIR full and unrestricted and your CHOPS vibrating! Sounds easy enough, but of course some days you just want to throw the horn out the window because you just can’t get it right. Well, perhaps it’s good that I delayed the writing of this article. Because, what I came across may help all of us with achieving the sweet spot in our playing everyday!

A trumpet player named Glenn Bengry wrote a brief piece on TPIN putting forth his distillation of what his friend Emil Gowatch gleaned from the infamous Raphael Mendez. Mr. Bengry says, ‘the chops come to the mouthpiece, not the mouthpiece coming to the chops.’ I think that is so very true, although, invariably, as impatient people we confuse this.

I believe the warm up approach that Mr. Bengry describes has a great deal of merit and should be tried in anticipation of implementing the other notions of playing issues I have presented above.

Glen says, “Blow gently through the mouthpiece, lips in a general mmmmmmm position but very loose, mouthpiece very lightly touching the lips (barely) NO SOUND YET, all you impatient trumpeters, WAIT. You don’t want to get a sound until you’ve blown in this fashion probably between 10-20 times give or take a little. (Mendez says to blow 2-3 minutes just air) You want the air to FLOW THROUGH the mouthpiece as easily as any exhalation Repeat this step with a VERY SMALL increase in air speed. Hold the lips together a LITTLE more firmly. Each time, you will be a little faster and firmer. the lips will gradually begin to gently “grip” the mouthpiece with somewhat equal contact around the whole circle of the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece does NOT hold the lips in place (our biggest hurdle perhaps). The mouthpiece “catches” the vibrations. So the chops come TO the mouthpiece, not the mouthpiece TO the chops (and usually too much against the chops). The trumpet beast makes us press too hard. The horn is only a resonator and amplifier essentially. It amplifies what it catches from the lips. At some point as you make these tiny adjustments the speed and firmness will be at the point where a vibration will spontaneously happen. It may only be a short vibration, which will disappear right away. You are now extremely close to a balance/efficient point. Now speed up your air a little more and you will likely get a longer buzz (it’s tempting to abandon your perfect spot and immediately go back to the “old way”. Resist if you can. Once you get here, you are real close to YOUR magic spot. You should now be real close to being able to maintain this easy, flowing, light pressure sound as a long tone. See if you can maintain the balance between air speed, embouchure firmness and mouthpiece contact/pressure. This is the basis for your own tone production balance (you have to find that spot every day).”

Keep jamming fellow Trumpeters!!

Trumpetdude

Just kidding. But until I came across Dennis Gonzales’ video a few weeks ago, I hadn’t thought about cornets since High School, some thirty plus years ago! I also forgot about the pretty sound you can produce on them. Well, it started me to thinking I needed to add a cornet to my arsenal. In the process I came across a real gem that I wanted to share with you all.

There’s this guy named Nick DeCarlis, who started to play as a kid, quit, and later, while in college, taught himself how to play. Well, since that time, he’s become a collector/restorer, gifted cornet player and avid promoter of jazz music. There is some really neat stuff on his web page ‘vintagecornets’, including an article and photos of cornets with two bells. I have placed some of the links to Nick’s sites below. Check these sites out and find out what the ‘Cornet Conspiracy’ is all about. Also, if you haven’t listened to the Dennis Gonzales video, please do!

TD

http://vintagecornets.com

http://www.jazzcor.net/

http://www.pocketcornets.com/index.html

http://www.decadesign.com/scptest/classicjazzbrochure.pdf

This has always been one of my favorite jazz genres. I mean it was the first sort of rock I heard. Although my mother was a very capable singer with a beautiful voice, the music available in the household was fairly limited, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole. Soft stuff, you know. No Elvis or Beatles or anything close. When I started playing the trumpet, I gravitated to the trumpet records by Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt, and of course the old ‘Echoes of an Era’ Maynard Ferguson Orchestra stuff. So, when my friends showed up one day with the Bill Chase ‘Pure Music’ album, I was completely blown away. Mind you, I was all of 12 years old at the time. To this day, that is still one of my favorites. Although, I now find myself listening to Bill Chase’s ‘Ennea’ album more than the others. Strange what age will do to you! I mean if you want a practice work out, start transcribing and playing some of that stuff. Four highly skilled trumpet players playing just absolutely amazing. Songs like Poseidon and Zeus. Oh yeah!

Bill was the godfather of Jazz Rock or Fusion as its now called. Nothing else has ever come close to the awesome sound he created with his group, ‘Chase.’ Speaking of the ‘godfather,’ Bill Chase’s original family name is a true Italian one, Chiaiese (key-ah-tze). His father, however, decided to simplify it to Chase. Prior to forming ‘Chase,’ Bill paid his dues playing lead with the big bands of Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and Woody Herman. Trumpet was not Bill’s first instrument. Rather, he started as a drummer. Sometime in the middle of High School, Bill decided he had had enough of carrying a heavy bass drum in parades. His father had played trumpet and so he started playing his father’s horn and took to it quickly.

Bill was truly an innovator both as a lead player and of course with his own group. His creations were legendary. Unfortunately he was taken from us too soon. He died in a plane crash between gigs in August of 1974.

So, when I discovered recently that all three of his albums are available in a cd set through Amazon I was euphoric, to say the least. Check this out, this is an absolute must have for trumpet fans.

Trumpet Dude salutes one of the best today, Happy Birthday Kenny! Yes, Kenny Dorham was one of the best voices to ever travel the trajectories of a trumpet. While his playing voice was incredible, he never received the accolades he should have from the jazz establishment, always overshadowed by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown and Fats Navarro. Perhaps this is simply because he didn’t have a flamboyant personality like the others. I can only speculate, but in fact, he was referred to as ‘quiet Kenny.’ Regardless, his playing has stood the test of time and is now considered some of the best and a must listen for any aspiring jazz trumpeter today. I myself had not heard of Kenny until trumpeter Dave Scott turned me on to him some years ago, asserting that Kenny was his favorite. To this day, I am utterly amazed and challenged by the music that Kenny composed in his improvisations.

Kenny grew up in south Texas and began to teach himself piano and trumpet during High School. During High School he also spent a lot of time on the school boxing team. He studied chemistry and physics in college and was drafted into the Army in 1942. By 1945 he was playing in the first Dizzy Gillespie big band. Thereafter, he played with other great jazz players and leaders including Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton, Mercer Ellington and also the BeBop Boys (aka 52nd Street Boys).

Kenny was a wonderful composer. He composed and arranged several great pieces including, “Okay for Baby” for Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter, and “Malibu” for Cootie Williams. He also did ghosting arrangements for the infamous Gil Fuller that were sold to several name big bands, including Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, and Gene Krupa. He is also remembered for writing the jazz standard, ‘Blue Bossa.’

In late 1948, Kenny replaced Miles Davis in the Charlie Parker quintet where he continued to play for a year or so. This group played together at the Paris Jazz Fair in 1949. Following that gig, Kenny did free lance work in New York playing alongside many greats including the brilliant players and composers Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.

Twice in his playing career Kenny replaced trumpeter Clifford Brown. First, for Art Blakey’s group the ‘Jazz Messengers,’ in 1954, when Clifford formed the infamous quintet with Max Roach (Brown/Roach Quintet) and then replacing him in that same group in late 1956 when Clifford tragically died in an auto accident.

Kenny also headed several of his own groups including a group he named the ‘Jazz Prophets.’ A notable player that joined one of Kenny’s groups was a young tenor saxophonist, Joe Henderson, who was 26 when he teamed up with Kenny in 1963. They formed a long lasting friendship and were quite prolific producing many fine pieces for Blue Note and Prestige, including my favorite, ‘Una Mas.’ This documented period also reveals Kenny playing with up and comer, Herbie Hancock.

During his short life, Kenny also wrote several great and insightful reviews for the jazz magazine, ‘Downbeat.’

Happy Birthday, Kenny!!

Arthur Stewart Farmer, August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999.

 I would like to say a special Happy Birthday to one of my personal mentors, Art Farmer. Art began performing as a jazz trumpeter in the 1940’s and 50’s. He, along with Clark Terry, was influential in bringing the flugelhorn into the sounds of jazz. He also later played what I just learned was called a Flumpet, a combination trumpet and flugelhorn designed for him by David Monette.

In the mid 40’s he started playing professionally in Los Angeles, California with the bands of Johnny Otis, Roy Porter, Benny Carter and Jay McShann and others. Many of these groups also featured his identical twin brother and bass player Addison Farmer. In 1953 he joined the Lionel Hampton orchestra, playing alongside trumpeters Clifford Brown and Quincy Jones. During his career he played with many of the jazz greats, including Gigi Gryce, Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Golson and McCoy Tyner, among others. Art played in a trio with Jim Hall and Steve Swallow during 1962-64. In 1968, Art moved to Vienna where he joined the Austrian Radio Orchestra, worked with the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band and toured Europe with his own groups. In the 1980s Farmer began to visit the United States more often and remained greatly in demand up until his death on October 4, 1999.

Art played beautifully lyrical and inventive passages that really produced a unique complimentary quality to his bop oriented music. Art left us with a large number of quality recordings to enjoy.

Speaking of athletes, since the Beijing Olympics are being conducted as I write, an excellent topic comes to mind. A very famous brass instructor left us with a book I would strongly advise each of you to purchase immediately, entitled, ‘Musical Calisthenics for Brass.’ This book was out of print for a period, but I presently have it included within my Trumpet Superstore.

Although I did not have the good fortune to study with Mr. Caruso personally, my former teacher, Jack Thompson did. As youngsters we witnessed Jack’s playing transform itself during his period of traveling to New York to study with Mr. Caruso. The improvement was phenomenal. A short time later, my good friend and fellow trumpet player, Michael Manthey also proceeded to travel to New York to study with Carmine. Imagine a thirteen year old traveling to Times Square to take lessons from a person who didn’t even know how to play a brass instrument. That’s right, Mr. Caruso was a woodwind player. He, however, had developed an intuitive sense of the problems that brass players faced and developed a system of instruction and exercises that is amazing. In his own words, Carmine said this, “when playing an instrument, the musician is dealing with numerous body motions. It’s the synchronization of these motions that produce the desired results. Synchronization requires perfect timing of all muscular movements. Therefore, timing is of the utmost importance.”

Carmine’s approach worked well. Michael Manthey is now one of the best players on the scene today, as are several other of Carmine’s students such as Lew Soloff, Marvin Stamm, Chuck Findley, Randy Brecker, among many others, including, Charly Raymond. Mr. Raymond has kindly set up a memorial site in honor of Carmine Caruso. Please check it out, it will help you get a glimpse of the master’s mind and help you when you begin working through his book. In particular, read what former students had to say about Carmines’ approach. Great site, http://www.carminecaruso.net/.

Of course, I didn’t touch on the musician aspect of trumpet playing in this piece, but we have to start somewhere in order to handle the disorder of our “personality.” As a former Caruso student aptly stated, “Carmine’s powerful callisthenic approach and his rules of implementation were the tools that he used to bring out the musical soul of the student.”

Purchase Carmine Caruso’s book, by either clicking the link below, or by entering my Trumpet Superstore link on this page. Breath deep and enjoy your journey, fellow disordered ones.

Trumpetdude

Now, I’ve termed this column, ‘creativity,’ but it’s not going to be limited to the literal sense of that word. The process of being creative involves numerous subjects. Although from time to time I will be discussing various aspects of ‘creativity’ in the “Playing/Improvisation’ section of this site and also within the ‘Player Well Being’ section, I think that it is a broad enough and important enough topic that the dividends of its pursuit are worthy of a separate section.

Simply stated, creativity can be viewed as a mental process that produces new ideas, concepts, or alterations of existing ideas and concepts. Aligned with this, either as a complimentary component or as subsequent process, is the concept of innovation. Innovation is something that can occur in degrees or by great bounds. In the development and creation of music, I encourage both.

One might view creativity as a simple concept and superficially that may be so. However, psychologists, scientists, philosophers, historians, economists, design professionals, business people and engineers have all studied aspects of creativity in an attempt to master what it really is. During the age of enlightenment in the eighteenth century, the concept of creativity was linked to the concept of imagination. This was especially true as it concerned art.

When reflecting on my own life, my biggest obstacle and hurdle was lack of self- confidence and negativity. While I could write a book on this whole phenomenon and probably should, for now I will attempt to present some of my knowledge and beliefs.

As it applies to trumpet players, the most important aspect of having a successful life and playing well is developing the proper attitude. When I say attitude, I mean having faith in oneself and always looking at your playing with a positive attitude.

Although I never met or studied with Bill Adam, from what I can tell he really was a true master of trumpet playing. On the subject of the mental side of trumpet playing, Bill basically said this:

If you pick up your horn and play something and say, “Holy mackerel! That stinks!” Well the first thing you are doing is programming your sensory mind in a negative way. And so, when you allow that to happen you only build upon that negative perception. “Now, if that tone doesn’t sound the way you want it to sound, what you do is, you say……..NOTHING about it. You don’t even think anything about it. And you re-program a beautiful sound in your mind, and the first thing you know, that starts to take over. But that’s what you have to watch when you’re playing the trumpet. If articulation isn’t there, or this or that or the other thing, you’ve got to watch your programming. Feeling sorry for yourself causes all these programming things to go to your head. So we’re going to program ourselves for all those good things that are necessary to have when you play.”

Now before we get to deep into any of this creative stuff, let’s be clear that in order to be successful we have to have a plan of some sort. While its easier to start off each day in neutral and simply react to what comes our way, that will simply lead to inertia and that will not make you good trumpet players. Live life like you mean it! Play like you mean it! A great place to start is with a positive mental attitude.

The master motivator, Earl Nightingale said this, “Success or failure as a human being is not a matter of luck, or circumstance, or fate, or the breaks, or who you know or any of the other tiresome, old myths and clichés by which the ignorant tend to excuse themselves. It’s a matter of following a commonsense paradigm of rules — guidelines anyone can follow.”

Now go play something pretty for me!!

For now, let’s focus on pranayama. The first part of this word prana means breath. When the late great Maynard Ferguson was asked about his ability to play so well in the upper register, he attributed his ability to his mastery of prana. “I tell everyone, young and old alike to go out and get a couple of books on Hatha Yoga, and read the parts about breath, or prana. The Indians call prana ‘the life force,’ and sometimes we forget that if we weren’t breathing, we’d be dead.” He asserted that there was nothing special about his lip, rather it was use and control of air.

The phenomenon of breath control constitutes an entire branch of Yoga called Pranayama. Pranayama was developed to study patterns of breathing and their effects on the mind and the body. Ancient Yogis discovered that with breath control you can increase ‘Pranic Energy’ or life force, and control states of consciousness. Yogis of Pranayama assert that by bringing in and holding pranic energy through the breath one can control all the forces of the universe, the electric, bio-electric, magnetic and the atomic.

There are three stages to the breathing process. Inhalation, which is called puraka, fills the lungs with air and stimulates the whole body. Retention is called kumbhaka. During retention, the body’s temperature is raised and the oxygen is absorbed. Exhalation is called rechak. In rechak the diaphragm is returned to its original position. The intercostal muscles are contracted and the toxic air is released into the atmosphere. With pranayama practices, vital energy is distributed throughout the body, ensuring the proper functioning of all the organs and greater levels of physical energy.

It has been said that the lungs are like bellows stoking the fires of life within you. The richer the supply of oxygen, the more vigorous and beautiful is the fire. By breathing deeply you are delivering more oxygen into your system thereby giving your body the vital fuel it needs to nourish all your organs and keep your body strong and healthy.

Since the benefits of studying and practicing this branch of yoga are so strong, I encourage you to begin this journey today. There are several fine books and dvd’s on the subject. A few of those are:

In order to properly play the trumpet a certain amount of tension is required in the facial and abdomen areas, however, all other physical components of the body must be focused yet relaxed, especially the mind. This is a very difficult thing for most of us to do.

In his book, ‘The Art of Brass Playing,’ Phillip Farkas wrote, “in order to produce a sound on a brass instrument we must vibrate the lips into the mouthpiece by means of the air-stream. In order to create this vibration, certain muscles must be tensed.” Farkas goes on to describe this as a combination of tension in both the cheek and chin muscles simultaneously. These two must compliment each other – as Farkas says, “smile and pucker balance each other, resulting in puckered smile.”

In the process of producing the forced respiration necessary to sound our trumpets and directing it to a tensed embouchure, we may actually impede the air-flow because of tensed torsos, shoulders, necks and throats.

As I mentioned earlier, it is a natural tendency to tighten the throat. This phenomenon is known as the Valsalva maneuver and is defined by the medical community as a natural bodily function in which “…the throat closes simultaneously with respiratory muscle contraction” (Breathing for Musicians, Scott A. Nelson, DMA). While this may be a natural part of respiratory muscle function, as Dr. Nelson points out, “it is devastatingly disastrous to speaking, singing, and wind instrument play.”

So, if you want to become a top-notch player, you have to learn to control this issue. Remember, more air can get through if you keep your throat OPEN and blow easily through your lips. Practice scales, and anything else for that matter, without the horn on your face. Rather, finger the notes on the horn and blow the notes with your lips in a whistle, singing type manner. Afterwards, play the scale or passages with your trumpet. Alternate back and forth in this manner being cognizant of an OPEN throat. These alternate blowing sessions are referred to as “wind patterns” and are extremely helpful in reducing throat tension. Do a lot of wind patterns!

It is also possible that the throat pressure is caused by tension in the hands, arms, shoulders and neck, which translates into a tight throat. Hold the horn loosely as possible. You may also want to adopt one of the recommendations of Claude Gordon and, “lift the fingers high and strike the valves hard.” This may relieve some of the tension in your hands and arms.

Of course, this is the sort of thing that won’t cure itself overnight. You will have to be diligent and become conscious of how you control and direct your air energy.

There are several books available on the balance of tension , air-flow and relaxation. Some of my favorites include:

Well, last night, having worked too late into the evening, I wasn’t in the mood for high note antics or the like. You might say I was feeling a bit mellow. Thumbing through some CD’s I hadn’t listened to in a while, I came across ‘Little Johnny C,’ by Johnny Coles. I had forgotten what an experience it is to listen to this cat play. Oh man, I mean his sound lights a fire deep into my spine. Warm but cool, with shades of purple, green and yellow. While Johnny Coles is not a household name in the jazz world, as trumpeters he is one player that you should be familiar with. Johnny grew up in Philadelphia and started playing the trumpet at age ten. He was mostly self-taught, with the extent of his formal music training being received at a vocational high school. He played in army bands during the war years and thereafter began to play in various R&B groups, including Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson’s group, which included John Coltrane. After this period, Johnny hooked up with James Moody and played with his group from 1956-1958. When he left Moody, he began an association with Gil Evans that lasted until 1964. During those years he played on several Evans productions, including several Evans-Davis collaborations, such as ‘Porgy and Bess’ and ‘Sketches of Spain’. Some have commented that his association with Evans deprived him his just dessert and caused him to be seen as merely a Miles Davis understudy. Regardless, Mr. Coles exploited the fullness of his trumpet’s qualities, as he was truly a capable musical colorist that understood how to use a color’s shades well. After separating with Evans, he toured with the Charles Mingus group for a period. There is a Charles Mingus DVD set entitled ‘Live in ’64,’ that contains live footage of the group’s performances in Europe. Johnny also played with Herbie Hancock during 1968-69. A great chart to hear his genius on is entitled, ‘The Prisoner’ on the Herbie Hancock album of the same name. During the remainder of his life, Johnny played with Ray Charles, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, among others. You can enjoy the warm sound of Johnny Coles on these fine productions.