But What Slide Lubricant, Champ?

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A long time ago, in that great and expansive past history of the slide trombone, at least two things were foretold:

  1. The trombone (sackbut, serpenty-slide, etc.,) will be made into something called a “video game” featuring a trombonist with a giant head. This game will be played even by people who do not play the trombone, and lo, even by people who have no real interest in playing a real trombone. Even further lo, this game shall sound much weirder than a real trombone, with slide accuracy that shall have real trombonists everywhere shaking their heads, not in a good way, even though hitting slide positions is apparently part of the whole point of the game.
  2. Trombonists will, well into the future, get together and talk about which slide oil, lubricant, etc., really works the best (on real trombones).

You’re holding it wrong, dude.

The first prophecy was always going to be a little tricky, and frankly it seemed like a long shot, but here we are. Welcome to the future! It’s just starting now. The second? Easy. Fulfilled for years. The problem, of course, is that no one will ever be able to really decide which slide lube works the best. Oh sure — people will get close. Here in the technical vastness of the future, many say the best is Yamaha Slide Lubricant, which in the more immediate past was known as Yamaha Slide Oil. Some “swear by” Slide-O-Mix, or “Rapid Comfort.” But when it comes to slide action, will there ever be any real comfort?

Related:

Jack Teagarden Documentary

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The documentary has been on YouTube since late 2021, and recounts the story of one the most universally revered and beloved jazz musicians, Jack Teagarden. Importantly, this documentary work on Big Tea — now so easily and freely available — would absolutely not exist without the work of the late Joe Showler*, the Canadian record collector who exhaustively documented nearly every day of Teagarden’s career.

Related links here at Commander Trombone:

**In the middle 90s, when I was working on a master’s thesis paper on Jack Teagarden, Joe Showler was of extremely kind (and indispensable) help.

The Obvious Love for Slide Hampton

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Some heartfelt tributes for Slide Hampton have rolled in this month. First, a video presentation from trombonist Dion Tucker at his YouTube channel. He shares his great photos and insight:

At JazzTimes, here are Michael Dease’s reflections on Slide Hampton.

Related: Michael Medrick’s collection of transcribed Slide Hampton solos, mostly from the excellent Mad About Tadd recording.

The Passing? Nor’easter

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Here it is: a post after more than a year. What possible explanation could there be? There was a pandemic, then Donald Trump, a fake leader who completely mishandled a pandemic. This unfortunate situation might have been bad enough, but there was something more, something that made things even worse: deluded Trump supporters.

Sure, it may seem harsh to call some Trump supporters deluded, but these people are out there. Some portion of the American populace got completely fooled when they elected Trump, believing even his sloppily crafted mythos. Next, a smaller portion of those same people got fooled (again) by some random person who self-applied the handle “QAnon.”

The internet has always been good at spreading nonsense. The World Wide Web (See fake, but oddly prescient, history here), which added pictures and graphics, accelerated the whole thing, even when people were using dial-up connections at home. On the other hand, America Online might have slowed things down a bit. You had to pay for it . . .

But then eventually everybody got broadband, or super-fast dial-up without dialing up. Amazon! You can buy things online! Later, Facebook appeared, or America Online without having to pay. The business model became “engagement,” which in turn could get you to buy things. What price engagement? Thanks to some technological vision, computers, or what used to be called “cell phones,” got small enough you could fit them in your hand.

That was it; all the necessary parts assembled. The super-charged nonsence train left the station on a collision course with, well, whatever democracy we had left.

The Good Virus

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It’s the global pandemic you’ve no doubt heard about. For me and millions of others in most of 2020 thus far, a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has necessitated keeping “proper” social distance from most other people. Sadly, social distancing is one of the few counters we’ve had to the virus since its emergence and subsequent spread nearly everywhere. It’s only one of the problems that’s been nothing but exacerbated by our president here in the United States, Donald J. Trump.

George Floyd mural outside Cup Foods

How bad Donald Trump is for the United States (and the world at large) simply cannot be overstated. From the beginning, there have been his apologists, the people inside and outside of government who would like to explain his presense, speech, and actions as mere differences of political opinion. Many of these same people would also like to portray any counters to his abuses as only driven by some sort of irrational, blind hatred of the man himself. It ought to be obvious by now that neither of these arguments holds any water at all. It ought to be, but isn’t. While he and the country continuously reap the whirlwind of horrible leadership, there currently is an unbelievable percentage of Americans that still cling to his distorted MAGA vision. Or, if not to that, to their “justifications,” their “reasons.” Trump is simultaneously a symptom and a cause of national strife.

And here in the United States, today, is another symptom staring us in the face: the systemic racism that has led to the death of another black man, George Floyd, at the hands of the police here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. No, it’s not just a few bad apples down at the Police Department. It is an us vesus them, increasingly militaristic culture that pervades police departments all over the country. Further, policing in the U.S.A. didn’t just appear out of nowhere: it’s a racist history that has delivered us here to the present day.

Floyd’s unjust death has already resonated throughout the world. There’s been a demand for change and justice everywhere. There’s been social distance, yet distance has collapsed amidst protest in the streets. Has the desire for justice gone viral? We can only hope.