Tech has not smoothed over playing the trumpet

Ingrid Jensen was a UMM Jazz Fest clinician/performer.

Technological advancements with products have been so far-reaching, I inquired with a music friend about whether trumpets are now made so they're not so physically demanding to play. The answer: "no." He said he had felt some curiosity about this himself. Someone had scolded him a little, saying "gee, are you looking for the easy way to do everything?" Well, a nice succinct answer to that would be "yes."
We ought to be unapologetic for this attitude. Maybe the turnaround in our lives was caused by the crashed UFO seized in Roswell NM. Whatever the cause, there's no denying that the digital revolution - a renaissance - has erased many longstanding attitudes about "work," the necessity of it and even the virtue of it.
I remember a conversation I had with a restaurant waitress - fountains of wisdom, they can be, though they're an endangered class now due to the shutdown - and we noted that people have no qualms these days about simply saying they are "not working." Think about that. Quite the shift from the previous norm. In the past we'd judge someone's basic value on the amount of time they spent working, with their "nose to the grindstone" as it were.
I felt proud as I did the labor of sorting newspapers, loading the sacks into the van and then going out and about distributing. I was proud to have the public observing me doing this. I was "working." I'd have to take about four showers a week. My "free time" could feel like a godsend, like stepping outside for some fresh air first thing in the morning.
The nature of work has changed. Basic labor has surely not disappeared. It never will. But we no longer equate it so much with virtue, if at all. Knowledge is what matters today. It's the knowledge to tap into sophisticated and labor-saving systems. Efficiency has become a real currency. You are "productive" today not according to the sheer number of hours you work each week. You are productive by how you add value to resources with an accent on labor-saving technology.
Did this post start out with a reference to playing the trumpet? Well allow me to reminisce that I once had this "ax" as rather a stock-in-trade. For better or worse I picked up some credentials that helped define me as a young person. Few people around our community of Morris have any recollection of that. No matter. Few people remember, also, how I made my rounds in a 1967 Oldsmobile Toronado, purchased from Bill Dripps, for about a decade. Does life get any better than that?
And then when these phases had run their course, that's when I got on board with the Morris newspaper which, for better or worse, became my stock-in-trade. So now I look back.
 
Notes on brass
The trumpet now strikes me as a strange instrument, a rather gross instrument, where you press your lips up against a "mouthpiece" and have to send spit through the horn in order to produce sounds. Anyone who has played brass knows about the practice of emptying spit. Brass instruments present the obstacle of being physically draining to play. The lips part of the whole thing is represented by the term "embouchure."
There's a movie scene with Jimmy Stewart directing an orchestra and being beside a featured trumpet performer. Just before the start of this musical number, Stewart turns to the soloist and says "how's your embouchure?" That cracks me up.
This is strange: the raisin d'etre (not a breakfast cereal) for trumpet players is to play the very high notes. It makes me laugh as I reflect on it - with age comes wisdom. Let's employ simple logic: if the high notes are so important, why not just play a different instrument? My late mother made this precise observation once when she observed a video I was playing of Maynard Ferguson. Maynard Ferguson! My generation of brassers practically lost its mind being mesmerized by M.F., whose stock in trade was the incredibly high notes.

And why should this attribute or talent matter so much? His raw talent with that actually obscured his real music/jazz genius, without which he really would not have gone anywhere. But us testosterone-fueled boys of that earlier time thought the high notes were totally boss, and it got so bad we'd fantasize about being Maynard. Hey, you all remember, don't hang your heads.
 
A timely trumpet showcase
So I'm remembering all this background as I appreciate a fresh recording here in the year 2020 called "A Hope for the Future," presented by 32 of the top trumpeters. It's "a tribute to the true frontline heroes around the globe, health care specialists dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic."
Artistically I think this is super. As a "tribute," well I don't know about that as there are no lyrics to convey anything. We have to take their word for it. Now, maybe you know that trumpet players have a reputation of being vain folks. Music insiders would say "chair conscious" because the players of course all aspire to be "first chair" in the section. Looking back, I see that focus as being so absolutely pointless.
So I'm wondering if the "Hope for the Future" thing was really just a dressed-up vanity project for these trumpet players. You have to understand the trumpet-playing beast. I was on that turf once but I don't think I got sucked into all the norms.
I watch some Maynard Ferguson videos today and part of me wants to say "the emperor has no clothes" as my late mom surely would. I'm happy for all the success he had. But it seems truly perverse that he became a Greek god of sorts by virtue of his gift of simply reaching high notes. Why so important? Seems like an elementary question now.
I'll conclude by sharing two links. First, here's "A Hope for the Future," the elaborate trumpet showcase which is so well worth listening to. Note: Three of these performers were guests for the UMM Jazz Fest through the years: Allen Vizzutti, Wayne Bergeron and Ingrid Jensen. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR_7P5_7kh4&list=RDeR_7P5_7kh4&start_radio=1

 

OK, last but not least, or maybe it's least, here's a link to a TV show from 1973, from the Alexandria MN TV station, on which yours truly is seen playing with the Tempo Kings orchestra. The Sarlette family of Morris is also seen. The quality of the video is archival. It is proof that it's not a tall tale that yours truly once played trumpet. I have photos of my 1967 Oldsmobile Toronado too. A toast to that. Heads-up: I only weigh about 150 pounds in video. I had run cross country in the fall. "Tricky Dick" was our U.S. president.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0uuVZOXhA&feature=youtu.be
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com