Klarinet Archive - Posting 000447.txt from 2004/11

From: Robert Wood <instruments@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Re: Doublings: =?windows-1252?Q?=93Now_for_Something_Compl?=
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:33:06 -0500


In case of Fire, or relevance...-DELETE THIS !!

RE: Clar...->Flute->Tuba->Tinker-.Evans->Chance.

Some time in 1934, I was ten years old,in Boise Idaho living with my
Grandma and Aunt to cure asthma I had conjured up in military school.
Piano lessons got awfully pale, and Harry Lauder’s “Roamin’ in the
Glomin” on the Victrola- awakened an urge for me to stop jumping up and
down-bouncing the needle and go play a wind instrument.

At the junk yard where we used to sneak in and play tag, I found the top
of an Atwater Kent Radio, It’s the big horn that the RCA Dog sits in
front-on their old labels. The man let me have it for 15 cents, and I
scrubbed it clean, stuck half my face into the “1 1/4”opening and blew
my brain out for an hour until somebody came over to ask Grandma to
please stop the noise. I still have this first horn and just checked the
measurement. But at the time it felt like the mouthpiece was 3 inches
across. It really sucked face.

“Grandma could I get a real instrument?”- and she sent me across the
street to where the Boise High School Music director lived. It was a
very buggy hot summer night. He came to the door, and I asked him if I
had the right lips for a wind instrument.

Turning on the yellow porch light, without opening the screen: “Let me
see your lips!!”.
I puckered them - it felt like 12 inches out in front of my face - I
wanted an instrument so much.

The memory now brings up a Norman Rockwell-esque side view of a little
boy bent way forward- face coming to a point at the lips - under a
yellow light; the portly man in glasses, shorts and slippers, newspaper
at half mast,-a picture of kindly, annoyed interruptance.

“What instrument would you like to play?”
”Trombone”.
“ I think you have very good lips for a trombone”, he said without
dropping a beat. I think I thanked him and ran as fast as I could back
to Grandma to tell her the good news.
Back east in New Jersey- my mother and father sent money to get me a
trombone- for $12. A used Cleveland- which I took to bed with me the
first night and next day I climbed my tree house, holding the trombone
in one hand to play reveille. I was sure that a trombone could blow
whatever bugles blew, and there was something called ‘reveille’ so I
blew it.

No lessons. I just joined the Junior American Legion Marching Band and
sat between two older trombone players and watched what they did, then
took the band book home to practice ‘Our Director’ and “Them Basses”,
“Liberty Bell”- first favorites then- but soon Arthur Pryor and Sousa
marches came easily, and suddenly it seems we were marching in a Forth
of July parade upstate somewhere.
My Boise piano teacher let me play the Washington Post March at the Old
Soldier’s Home out near the Natatorium swimming pool, just below Table
Rock. I was so proud, and she told me later of the laughter when I
announced I would play the Washington Post March by John Philip SoSo.

1938-back east in East Orange, New Jersey- I was lucky enough to have
C.Paul Herfurth as the band and orchestra director. We played concerts,
and at one football game we were behind at the end of the 4th quarter,
when our guy intercepted a pass, ran for a winning touchdown and the
entire band rushed to the sidelines to cheer. Returning to play the
school song I found the top of my trombone slide now had a sharp bend in
the middle- from someone’s foot- but it still blew the B flat series- so
F’s, B flat, and D worked wherever they could--and it went on to be
repaired and played at hundreds of weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

Herfurth was a wonderful High School director. Nobody was playing bass
fiddle so he let me carry it home to our attic every afternoon so I
could play along with Martin Bloch and the Make Believe Ballroom- all
the big bands, Goodman trios, Teddy Wilson...and I got a chance to meet,
and talk with Glenn Miller during a breakat he Cafe Rouge. Mr.
Herfurth was an advocate for any of us with appetite-and he drove me and
Kenny Schuetz down to audition for the All State Band- and we both made
it. Those were heady days and then came Pearl Harbor. Later on I began
to hear and love Frederick Fennel, Harvey Phillips the magnificent Tuba
player with the New York Brass Quintet - and their recording of Muy
Linda became my theme song for a participative music radio program I had
on WBAI in New York, inviting New Yorkers to march to Muy Linda. Now
and then someone would be listening closely enough to call in to say Muy
Linda was in Triple Meter. So I knew there was someone out there, and
at least one person was listening-not just hearing.

And that’s how I took up music for fun and profit for the FBI and found
the Goddess ! And every day that she lends me is so much fun. It was
the hand I was dealt - and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Bob Wood

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org