Why are you playing what you're playing?

[Mike_Bonfig]

I went to a small Catholic grade school with no instrumental music program. In 8th grade our vocal music director, a retired band director from the local high school, brought in several horns one day to play for us. He played a flute, a clarinet, and some piece of low brass. Then he pulled out his coronet (he was a trumpet major in college) and played some Dixieland. My ears perked up a bit, but what really set me straight was when he pulled out his trumpet. He was about to play and then he said, "Hmmm...I better muffle this or I'll blast your ears out," to which he lifted the top of his briefcase and played into it to muffle his sound....but not much!!! He nailed some highnote and played a jazz lick, and ended it with a lip shake and a kiss off. It spoke to me instantly.

I was right up there at the end of class asking him what I could do to start playing. He got me connected with the public school band director and I started playing coronet with the band. Oh yeah, I pretty much sucked for my first couple of years, but then through the patience of my high school band director and then marching 3rd soprano with the Colts under Chuck Naffier, the chop fairy came to visit....the rest, as they say, is history.

Sidenote: I went back to my hometown about a year and a half ago (approximately 15 years after I first heard that retired band director play for my grade school) to hear my little brother play trombone with a group called "The Don't Quit Your Day Job Band". It's a bunch of people in the community some music teachers others just people who still play. The old vocal music director was playing with them. He has to be at least in his early, possibly late 70's. He's the only trumpet who has a stool to sit on during most of the show when he's not soloing. So we're sitting around watching these guys play. The vocal director's son is the lead trumpet and he's totally having himself, and I'm crawling out of my skin at his weak-### attempts at highnotes. Well, then it's time for his dad to solo. So this old 70+ year old guy stands up puts the horn to his lips and starts wailing like a son-of-a-gun...outplaying the entire band, out screaming his son and making the trumpets look like school-girls. He ended every solo with a shake and a kiss-off. Old habits die hard I guess!