Incidentally, you might wonder how NPR came up with the great title, “A Blog Supreme.” Well, they had a contest to name the blog, but they conducted the contest after they had already come up with the obviously-fantastic “A Blog Supreme” name. Go figure.

The basic issue of the trombone case may be easily solved. After all, most trombones ship with a case. However, these standard-issue cases vary in size, weight, and the amount of protection they provide. For plane travel, bigger trombone cases, including bass trombone cases, may be a problem as a carry-on. On the other hand, a relatively thin tenor trombone case can likely be taken on as a carry-on despite the fact that it will easily exceed most airlines official limitations of about 45 linear inches.

If you’re in the market for a trombone case (find some money somewhere and stimulate the economy, bub), below is a list of trombone case manufacturers. Most of these cases will likely need extra external protection if checked under a plane, with the possible exception of this one. As noted elsewhere, some musicians have further protected trombone cases by putting them inside a golf-club case or bag.

• Pro-Tec
• Marcus Bonna
• SKB
• BAM
• Glenn Cronkite

Here are some good on-line guides to check out:

• Steve’s Helpful Tips For Boarding a Plane With Your Instrument (Horn Guys website)
• How should I travel by plane with a trombone? Doug Yeo’s FAQ, Question No. 22.

Recently I embarked on a trip and a surprisingly annoying project: transporting a trombone across state lines with the help of commercial aviation.

To check or not to check? That was the question. Would the overhead compartments really fit my trombone despite the fact that the case was larger than the officially stated limit of “45 linear inches”? If I checked the trombone, would the baggage monkeys mangle it beyond recognition, delivering me a pile of mangled brass later?

As a hedge against the airline insisting I do it anyway, I finally decided to check the trombone. A specially constructed box was used for further protection of the Pro Tec trombone case. This “special construction” consisted of three taped together boxes, but the key feature of the enclosure was the yellow tape that bore the Italian phrase “Fra-gile” written in Sharpie marker.

What happened, you might ask? The box performed well on the trip, but a funny thing happened in the Boston airport on the way back. A friendly airline employee was inspecting the trombone box while I looked on. He paused. Was he trying to decipher the Italian? He said, “You know, you probably could have just brought this on the plane as a carry-on.”

Click to Play

Click to Play

There’s also a version of Jay and Kai playing It’s All Right With Me with a rhythm section that includes Tommy Flanagan on piano and Roy Haynes on drums. On what seems to be the same occasion, Dexter Gordon and Clark Terry join for I’ll Remember April, and Milestones. There are a few awkward Lost in Translation moments during the show as the musicians smile and “play along” with whatever is being said by the show hosts.

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…

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)

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.