Players I admire

Looking at the list of players I admire most they all have one thing in common. They are all great interpreters of music as well as being technically good players. If you listen to how they approach a piece of music they seem to be able to get into the head of the composer and make the piece sound the way they intended.

Maurice André

I became hooked on M André after hearing his 1989 recording of the Telemann concerto in D with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Ricardo Mutti. The andante is played at 60 beats per minute all the way through and just cries out every note with perfection. Considering he was in his 50's when he recorded it, its all the more incredible.

It would also be worth getting a copy of his version of the Arban Carnival of Venice which he plays on Flugelhorn. The last movement sounds like two seperate players. He re-recorded it in 1999 and it sounds just the same in either version.

Maurice André endorsed Selmer trumpets into the late 90's but played Schilke from '88 to '93 or so, before switching to Stomvi in the late 90's. However, it doesn't seem to matter what he plays on it sounds great.

M André came from a mining family and won a scholarship to study cornet at the Paris Conservatoire. One of the stories told of him is that his mother would often find him asleep in a chair with his trumpet in his arms having fallen asleep while practicing. He is essentially a very ordinary person and I think that is one of the atractions of his records. They have no pretention to them and no trickery (apart from the odd double tracking on double concertos). He plays live, the record company tapes it. Listening to a Maurice Andre record is like being at a concert.

Having said this, he is now in semi retirement (and who can blame him?). he does play occasional concerts, but with dubious reviews. The years may have caught up with M André, but in the end we have been left with a considerable legacy of recordings and repertoire, because without Maurice Andre we would have far fewer pieces of music to play as trumpet players. His work on transcribing harpsichord and oboe concertos with Jean Thilde createda major library of "new" works for trumpet. Much of this is scored for Piccolo Trumpet, an instrument he helped popularise. He also co-operated with Marie Claire Alain, making the Trumpet and Organ an established combination in popular culture.

Maurice André is a true musical genius.

Bix Beiderbecke

Many people believe that Bix Beiderbeck's status as a jazz legend has more to do with his early death than any musical ability.
I don't accept this view because if you listen to Beiderbeck's recordings you are hearing a true virtuoso of the cornet. Listen to the triplets in his solo on Royal Garden Blues and then try playing them. These are difficult solos which owe less to the idea of a cadenza and more to true improvisaton than the solos of Louis Armstrong in this period. The reason for this is obvious. Louis actually had music lessons and was tutored using books like St Jacombe and Arban. He learned by the classical cornet methods and broke out of the melody in the same way as a cadenza would. Beiderbecke was largely self taught and had no framework other than what sounded right at the time.

Bix is a very lyrical player. He really makes the cornet sing. He slots in and out of solos and bridges effortlessly.

Click here for a transcription of one of his simpler tunes "Davenport Blues", get a recording and play along. You will soon realise the subtleties of his playing.

Beiderbeck's other achievements lie in his promotion of the cornet as an instrument in jazz (without the continuing influence of Bix the trumpet would probably be even more dominant). Although the most common photographs show him using a Conn Victor he actually played for most of his later career on a Bach Stradivarius cornet and he was one of Bach's first superstar customers.

Without Bix Beiderbeck, Hoagy Carmichael would probably not have received the break he needed as a songwriter. The bands Bix played in also helped set the instrument line up for later swing and big band jazz. Look at this picture of the Wolverine Orchestra complete with rhythm section brass, woodwinds and saxes:

Maynard Ferguson

Maynard Ferguson is one of those trumpet players who is either adored or detested by other trumpeters. The reason for this polarization is a misunderstanding of what he sees his role as. He is not really a huge jazz innovator. Yes, his very compressed sound influenced the way the trumpet is played, but this was a byprofuct of his main interest which is entertainment. Maynard comes from the end of the Vaudeville tradition and really enjoys entertaining an audience. By concentrating on this aim he has broadened the appeal of big band jazz and probably kept it alive through the low ebb of the 70's. Maynard Ferguson has been able to reinvent himself and his music for different generations of audience qnd when the world started listening to traditional big bands again (like Harry Connick jr) he was ready in the wings with his Big Bop Nouveau band.

I was at the Glasgow concert on the Big Bop Nouveau band's first tour in 1990 and I have never heard such a tight band. The trumpets and saxes played like single instruments instead of three or four musicians. The thing which struck me most was Maynard's ability as a band leader to pull the band back in for one more chorus. He obviously enspires great respect from those who work with him. maynard is also a great encourager of others. He still plays a lot of high school concerts and will get members of the school band to sit in for his hits medley at the end. I think this is really his greatest strength. He is a nice guy and the world needs more of those.

Louis Armstrong

I am not going to write much about Louis here except to say that like Maynard Ferguson he was an entertainer rather than a trumpet geek. When max Jones interviewed him about his equipment he said he just used the mouthpiece that came in the box with the trumpet. He was never far from the Selmer 19A balanced action trumpet which he played from the 30's till his death. I think Louis was essentially quite eccentric. He lived in the same house in New York long after he could afford to move out. He carried large numbers of open reel tapes while on tour and decorated the covers with pictures and other artwork. These contained a lot of classical singers and I think that's a lesson for all trumpet players. If we can learn the phrasing of classical singers it will make us all better players. Louis was another nice guy and an entertainer.