Archive for the ‘About Trombones...’ Category

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

The Pied Piper of Basin Street


(click movie to play)

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Monday, February 4th, 2008

New Shires Trombone, Plus, More Back Pedaling!

shires trombone counter-weight

In the last post last month, I was forced to back pedal about the proper ways to celebrate the holidays. In this particular post, I’ll be back pedaling about refering to Minnesota as the “Quasi-Frozen,” or “Tepid North.” In point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s actually been quite cold here in Minnesota. How cold? Well, beers placed in the outside planter become icy-cold much more quickly than in either the standard refrigerator or freezer. When walking outside, old men with long flowing beards can be heard to mutter, “It’s all cold up in here,” right before boarding the number 4 bus to go downtown.

You may be wondering exactly why there hasn’t been a load of updates here recently. Well, I’ve been distracted by a variety of people, things, and shiny objects, including a new trombone. The trombone was very well made by the faithful workers at the SE Shires Shop in Hopedale, Massachusetts.

While it’s a great trombone, one thing in particular was not perfect. A nickel lead-pipe (one of three removable lead pipes) I took with me from the shop turned out to be not entirely straight, throwing the upper tube of the inner slide out of alignment. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this immediately and thought that I had “sprung” the slide myself somehow while transporting the trombone home.

Back in Minneapolis, I took the slide to an extremely competent repairman I know. He put the slide right with the offending lead-pipe still in. Guess what happened when I removed the nickel lead-pipe and replaced it with another later? The slide went out of alignment again! It was then that I realized what had happened. Back to the extremely competent repair guy. He put slide right again, and was also able straighten the nickel lead-pipe, which wasn’t necessarily an easy feat. Yes, the lead-pipe should have been straight to begin with, but the general disorder of the universe argues against easy perfection in all cases.

Anyhow, after that (and some other small events that made me wonder if I had been cursed by a shaman for accidentally cutting him off in traffic or something) the slide works perfectly…

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Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

The Sound of Now’s the Time

This YouTube post by Zemry features a host of be-bop greats: J.J. Johnson, Sonny Stitt, Howard McGhee, Walter Bishop, Tommy Potter, and Kenny Clarke. It’s apparently a video transfer of a kinescope made for British TV in 1964.

When I first saw and heard the YouTube clip, I thought the performance sounded familiar. Sure enough, I found that a CD I own contains the sound portion of the performance. Just to see if I could improve the sound of the video, I removed the original sound track in iMovie and applied the CD’s sound instead. The result does make the sound clearer, and the project is posted here in Quicktime form. Fortunately, J.J. “stomped” the tune off loudly enough on stage to make a fairly good audio sync possible, although it isn’t perfect.

Note that the video clip doesn’t include the entire performance. For that reason, you’ll hear the music continue after the clip ends.

(click movie to play) Direct link to the movie file.

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Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

The Sacred Sackbut of Marcy Tigner

Marcy Tigner's solo trombone christian faith recording

Although it may not be obvious to as many today, the history of music has long been tied up in the history of worship. Not to worry—the historical treatise needed to back that statement up won’t be pursued here. Suffice it to say that musical cross-pollination between the secular, the sacred, and the profane has been pretty common over the years, and the trombone has been of mighty good service to all three. Anyway, it’s possible that the sweet trombone style of Tommy Dorsey meets the sacred in Marcy Tigner’s Christian Faith trombone album from the 50s. How to describe the recording? The best thing for anyone to do is simply to listen. Whatever you think of the musical style, the trombone playing itself is fantastic.

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Trombone Website Tour

Below are some major trombone resources found on the web.

Selected Jazz Trombone Artists

Trombone Artists-classical

Jazz Trombone Artists-Historical

At www.redhotjazz.com, a site which focuses on jazz before 1930, you can find pages devoted to the following jazz trombonists:

Trombonists at the Great Day in Harlem website

Jazz Trombone Discography