Episode #13, Josh Kauffman

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey everybody, welcome back again to the Modern Trumpeter Podcast. I first heard about today's guest from a trumpet friend here in Utah, and ever since then I've been a big fan of him and his playing. We got to meet formally at the uh 2025 ITG conference here in Salt Lake City, Utah when he came out with the United States Army Blues. Of course, I'm talking about Josh Kaufman. Josh Kaufman grew up in Newcastle, Pennsylvania and graduated in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in jazz studies from the University of North Texas. While at UNT, he played in the Grammy nominated one o'clock lab band for three years, serving as both a jazz soloist and the lead trumpet player. While living in Dallas and attending UNT, he had the opportunity to share the stage with such artists as Doc Severinson, Bobby McFerrin, Frankie Valley in the Four Seasons, Chuck Finley, Wycliffe Gordon, Arturo Sandoval, Sean Jones, and many others. He toured with the 1 o'clock lab band to Australia to headline the Generations in Jazz Festival with James Morrison in 2016, as well as performing at Cancer Blows in 2015 and the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2017. Kaufman has had many influential teachers, including Alan Vazutti, Paul Stevens, Jay Saunders, Dr. Stephen Hawk, Rodney Booth, and John Holt. And if you are new to the podcast, be sure to follow us on Instagram at Modern Trumpeter and subscribe to our YouTube channel as well, The Modern Trumpeter. We are also in the process of writing a book called The Modern Trumpeter, a guide to building a versatile and successful career, which will be publishing later this year in 2026. The book covers dozens of topics in regards to the real world gigs, culture opportunities, and we get to hear from so many real world musicians who are making a living playing the trumpet. With insights and stories from dozens of professional trumpet players working in jazz, classical, commercial, all types of settings, this book gives you the tools, mindset, and insider knowledge to turn your talent into a sustainable career. Insights, stories, and behind the scenes of the music industry are provided by the likes of Wayne Bergeron, Bobby Shu, Briya Skonberg, Bajan Watson, Marcus Print Up, Glenn Marhevka, Dave Richards, Jay Webb, Jerry Hay, Brian McDonald, Kiku Collins, and many, many, many more. Follow us for updates at moderntrumpeter.com on the book release and order your copy later this year. Now, here is my interview with Josh Kaufman. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Modern Trumpeter Podcast. Today we're speaking with Army Blues veteran. This is Josh Kaufman. Josh, thanks for thanks for being with us. Hey man, thanks for having me. I was uh yeah, I always like to start with um kind of how you first got into the trumpet and at what moment you wanted to make trumpet your career.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Okay, I tend to, especially about this part, I'm I'm very, very sentimental. I'll tend to go like really long and I'll I'll try not to. So, long story short, my my grandpa, who I call Pappy, he was always Pappy to me, uh, he was a World War II veteran. And growing up in the house, I mean, years before I'd ever start playing trumpet, there were always records, always playing in the house. I noticed now, looking back, knowing what I know as a you know working player, for some reason he liked Trum Bone band leaders. Like it was always Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. But I'd I'd hear Ray Anthony and Harry James and whatever, and all this music was playing in the house. I knew it was jazz, like he must have mentioned it at some point, but I I just never forget that he always called it the music that won the war. And he would talk about like his time as a World War II veteran when he was on his ship, like going to bed at night, they might play Glenn Miller's Moonlight Cernate or a broadcast from Harry James, you know, uh stateside or something. And it was like the one little piece of home they got and how important that music was to him, not only because he liked the music, but for like his memory of you know his time in service. Uh-huh. So kind of just always being interested in that, he and I spent a lot of time together. And every Saturday night we would sit down together and watch the Lawrence Walk show, and we'd listen to all these amazing LA players who found a really good day job, kind of like a military band player. They were like playing in studios and whatever, and then they'd go play the Lawrence Walk show. Guys like Mickey McMahon, who is uh Les Brown's lead player, Dick Cathcart, who was like one of the busiest uh studio players back in the 50s and 60s, and Johnny Zell and all these other great players. But the story I like to tell is we were watching the Glenn Miller story. Uh, or no, the Benny Goodman story, although both both are really, really good movies. We're watching the Benny Goodman story, and there's a scene in there, of course, where they show the famous late 30s, uh 38 or 39, uh Benny Goodman concert at Carnegie Hall, right? And there's a portion of that concert. If you've never checked out like the original recordings, you should absolutely do it. It's just smoking. Harry James pays tribute to his hero, Louis Armstrong. He adored Louis Armstrong, and he plays Lewis's rendition of Shine, this really quick up tempo, like two-beat thing of Shine. And Harry just sets the place on fire. Yeah, they show Harry playing in the movie. Now, of course, it was in the face, and by that time Harry was like well established as like one of the most famous musicians on earth.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

But I saw that scene in the movie. I was maybe I was like five, six years old, maybe, and I just remember telling my papy that that whatever that is, that's what I want to do. That like that was it.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

And so he, you know, told me that was the trumpet player Harry James, who we could talk about later. Like, I own a lot of Harry's things now, and kind of like become his historian, and my son is named Harry James.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

But fast forward, Pappy was also a preacher in like his after-service life. And there was like a parishioner in the church that had an old king trumpet and told me that when I got my two front teeth, I could start playing the trumpet. And so I was probably like one of the only little kids that was like begging my dad to take pull my teeth. I'd be sitting there in school, like I'd feel like I just wanted to get my teeth out so I could start playing trumpet. And so finally I did that in the fourth grade, I was nine years old. That that's when I got started playing trumpet. I was pretty early on. Well, what's funny about that though, I'll just say quickly, um, I told you I would go long. When I actually started playing, when I actually started playing trumpet, I ended up not liking it. I would purposely leave my trumpet at home and not bring it on the school bus so I didn't have to go to like the band. We did like these like group lessons with our band director and stuff. Um and that might have just been because I was a kid. Kids have no patience, sometimes no work ethic, and I knew I was at least lucky enough that I knew what really good trumpet playing sound I like. I wanted to be Harry James. And obviously, playing Hot Cross Buns, I was not being Harry James. And so it took a while to like, I think, as I got older, to have like an actual reality realization of like, yeah, this is what I want to do. That probably happened in like the ninth grade. Yeah, I'd say like when I was a freshman in high school, because I remember I did an interview with Rick Baptist at the time, who was still like very active in the LA studios. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. That's where I wanted to go. That's what I wanted to do. But there was that weird period, like kind of in uh middle school and like later elementary school, where I don't know, for whatever reason I didn't like playing the trumpet, which was funny, because that's all I wanted to do prior.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

We ended up full circle, and now I have, you know, obviously I like the trumpet. So yeah, it wor it worked out okay, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah. Every time I see your room there, I'm just like, man, I want that.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

That's so cool. Like my friends affectionately call it the the museum.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah, yeah. So accurate. That is I love that. Yeah. Whenever I get out to DC, if you'd be willing, I want to see see all the stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

You works out.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

That's uh that's alright with me. I'll get my money's worth out of the flight, that's for sure. That's totally awesome. And so you said like when you were freshman, then you started getting back into it. What was the change then and kind of like the motivation to start putting in the work on the trumpet?

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Yeah, I that there was a very clear pivotal moment for me. The high school band director at the time, so so in elementary school, I actually loved our music teacher. I was kind of like in a smaller I I grew up, like I don't know where you're from, what the schools are like. Like I grew up in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My graduating class was like maybe like a hundred kids, 110 kids. So like we didn't grow up with lots of options, and like pretty much from elementary till graduation, we had band and choir. That was it, and general music for like the little kids. So that said, the guy that taught us lessons, he was the elementary school band director, he was the elementary school choir director, he was the general music teacher. I mean, he did everything. His name is Thomas Schaffner, Mr. Schaffner. And Mr. Schaufner is actually like an incredibly like acclaimed trombonist himself. He went to uh Duquesne University, which which back in his time was like a very reputable brass school. There were these brothers, the Shiner brothers. Maddie taught trombone, and I can't remember the brother's name that taught trumpet, but they they created all of these like unbelievable brass players that are still to this day working. And if I started naming them off, you'd know who they are. But he went to that school for Music Ed, but had to study with the Shiner brothers. So he he was an amazing brass player. And just a complete, I mean, uh I can't overstate enough how important a good and influential teacher is. I can go on a tangent about like people creating these stupid online courses and stuff to get rich and make money and whatever, but like Mr. Schaffner was like a true educator. He loved inspiring people. So I went to high school, trumpet aside, like I was hooked on Mr. Schaffner. Got to high school and was just like devastated. He was he was gone, you know, like I'm never gonna be with him again. The high school band director left. Mr. Schaffner, actually, his move to elementary was like kind of like half retirement. Because like back in the 70s and 80s, he was the high school band director at my school. He'd been there forever. When the high school band director teacher left for other reasons, they asked him to come back. And so he did. Luckily, my graduating class, there were like five or six of us that ended up becoming like really serious in music. He started like an after-school jazz band. We didn't have a class or anything, but we wanted to have one, and so he was willing to start one. And so when he came back to the high school, and I got to have him until I graduated again, and that's what he did. When we graduated, he retired. Um he gave me, he taught me how to transpose, he taught me how to transcribe. He, like I said, he started the big band after school. We would sit together and listen to recordings and he'd show me things or you know, whatever. He would uh have me, like the school always hired up like a pro orchestra for the school musicals and stuff, but he would let a few of us from my my class, from my graduating class, we would play in the orchestra. And so then I got to meet other great players. And and and it was at that moment when he when he came back to the high school, that's when I was like, Man, this is the coolest. I love music, I love trumpet, this is amazing. Had he not done that, I I remember actually talking to my parents. Uh I was in marching band with my sister, actually. She was like a like a dancer, whatever. They called him lancerettes. I like I hated it. I hated marching band, I hated band, the older kids are mean. Director like wasn't one of my favorite people on earth. And I I wanted to quit band. And Mr. Schauvener not come back. I I mean I again, like, even for him, talking about teachers generally, but specifically him, I can't state enough how important he is to me in my life. And this is somebody you've never heard of. This isn't like some famous trumpet teacher or something, but from a very early age, like that was the guy that inspired me to do this. Had he not come back, you and I might not be talking about trumpet. I might be like a some accountant or a government lobbyist, or who knows? I mean, who knows? So it was like it was it was that teacher at that point in my life that that showed me what I was able to do with music, and he saw that I had potential, and and he he really nurtured that. I mean, he would drive me to competitions and stuff that like my school didn't have access, or I was the first kid ever at my school to go to this thing or that thing, and and he would just take he would just take me. I I can't um yeah, I have so much love and respect for for for that man between him and my papy. Like that that's why I'm doing what I'm doing today for sure, no question.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah, that's incredible. And that's like those are the stories that you know I'm I'm looking for and that we want to hear because could uh for those listening, it's like what if we didn't have Josh Kaufman, right? Like, what if like all his all the talents, right? It's like man, that's like without that, it's like, oh it's crazy. And that's what like all these people that I've interviewed, it's it's it's interesting to like think of like what it what if they didn't? And like, what if there wasn't a Wayne? What if there wasn't a Bobby Shu? What if Absolutely like and just like there might have been those key moments where a music educator, and that's why I think like music education is so important and so undervalued all the time too is because of situations like that, and like, yeah, maybe not every student is gonna go into it professionally, but even with that, those positive experiences, you know, that one kid who played trombone might end up having a massive corporation where they have to give money, they'll give it to the arts from their past experience, or you know, so it's I think yeah, the work that educators do is super important.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah, it's so it's so unbelievably full circle. And yeah, like when I was a kid, uh you and I are very similar age. Like we grew up, yeah, admiring Bobby Shu and Alan Vazutti and Wayne Bergeron. And it's like now, you know, I'm 31. Now I might be sitting next to Wayne Bergeron and we're playing it on a gig, or I like some being in DC, I play next to Brian McDonald all the time. And Brian is like internationally loved by trumpet players and would love people would love to get in a room with him, and this guy's like one of my best friends. I was sitting here going, like, how in the heck did I get here? You know, it was weird when I moved to town. It like took a couple years to like stop fangirling over these people. But now I go play somewhere that I like one time I I remember I was playing with the Pittsburgh Symphony with Byron Stripling for some I don't know, some big band thing. I walked out of the stage door and there was a trumpet player there who like said, Hey, Mr. Kaufman. I like turned around, never seen him in my life, didn't know who he was, but we met. He had like seen me on the internet and he had heard somehow that I was playing with the symphony and he came to hear me and then waited for me at the stage door because he wanted to meet me and talk. And I'm like, How did I end up here? Like, of course, music is a business. Of course, we're trying to make money and provide for our families, and of course, we we have whatever aspirations and things that we want to be doing. But music is such like it uh uh it's so intertwined culturally and through relationships and just like our collective humanity. Like it's it's just so full circle for me to be sitting next to my heroes who've inspired me my whole life. And now I'm running across people that apparently in some way I inspired them to do something. And that's um that's probably one of the most rewarding things of all playing music, you know. You know, I try to always take the time when you're done with performances, like stay on the stage. Somebody's gonna come up and they're gonna want to talk to you, they're gonna want to picture, they're gonna want to ask you what mouthpiece you play on, you know, whatever. And I I try as best as I can to be generous with my time because yeah, you never know. You know, we walk away, right? Musicians are the most self-deprecating people on earth. We walk away going like, man, how many times does somebody come up to you and say, Man, Jaden, great job. And you're like, Oh, thanks, man. My chops were just kind of sore. They they didn't notice any of that. They just heard you play and they heard you put out the energy that you had, whatever, and they're walking home wanting to go practice because you inspired them, you know. And that's a really cool thing because I feel like sometimes we have this uh fictitious view of like just we demand perfection constantly. And that's true. We we we demand perfection, but rarely do we ever reach it. An unrealistic view of if you want to play like the best gigs on earth is like you can never miss, that's just not true. Even in the NFL, guys make millions of dollars and they my own Pittsburgh Steelers just totally blew it in the playoffs this year. They're all very rich.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

And if we gave ourselves a little bit more grace to allow ourselves to have a couple fumbles every now and then, but realizing what music does overall for society as a whole, for the listener, what they're you know, you don't know what baggage people come in with when they come to hear you play, or what little kid maybe is thinking about quitting band, and for whatever reason his parents took him to this concert you're playing at, and he walks away with this like newfound love for trumpet playing. That that's what music is about for me. That that's what makes it fun. Just always wondering what is what is happening to the listener when you're playing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's true. Part of you know what I do is working with young musicians through an after school program and whatnot and trying to inspire them. And sometimes you get asked to go out to do clinics at schools or like guest artists with some of the schools and stuff, and it's like sometimes they've never heard really heard a trumpet that loud before or that like that high, and they're just like, whoa! And my parents came to like a concert. I played at my junior high school with my director who's still there, and they were playing like the junior high version of like gonna fly now or something, and my director's like, Yeah, go, go, go, and you know, and uh in the video you can see like some flute players in the background, like I'm starting to play, and they're like and just like no way, and so it's like yes, like that's yeah, you're a superhero of them. And the trumpet players next to me are like are like, but they're like don't know what to say or do whoa. So and that's it's so much fun. Yeah. What it's about. Yeah, I love it. And I don't know if you've experienced this too of like you have these heroes, you have these people that you're just watching, you're just like wow, and then you meet them, and like and you're around them, and it it's like, oh, they're a person too. It's almost like they're they're like me, just yeah, they're human instead of yeah uh like fantasy character and whatnot. You know, I that's happened with me with Wayne, like we were at Dizzy's Club playing a gig. He came out with a high school band that I was in, and he's warming up before the gig, and I'm just like watching, you know, mouth jaw to the floor, like he's right there, and and he's like, Hey man, and I'm like, hi, you know, just like don't know what to do. Yeah, and he's I'm like, a mouthpiece are you playing, all that stuff. And he's like, Yeah, you know, brings me his horn and uh you know his GR mouthpiece, and he's like, Yeah, man, give it a try, and just like hands me his horn, like everything. And I'm like, hold him, like, I'm holding Wayne's truck. Oh my gosh, what like I better not drop this. What about and then like oh my gosh, and then played played in. I was like, This is the coolest thing I've ever done in my life, you know, and then immediately right afterwards, bought his mouthpiece, you know, and all that stuff. He's just been super nice, and it's been cool to like go through all these interviews of people that I'm like, wow, like these are like really good players, and people that I've like heard about and looked up to and heard so much, and then it's like they're like super nice, super chill, and I'm like, Oh cool. Like I've I've in the in a lot of them, I feel like like you like message it and like hey, question, or hey, like you know, when I come out hanging or and whatnot. And it's been super cool to to experience that and have that hopefully portrayed through this podcast that people such as yourselves and all these people we look up to aren't just robots. It's like yeah, they're they're they're people too. It's it's great. So and uh okay, off now moving on to the next tangent, right? Alright. So so then uh where'd you go to school and what were your initial thoughts? I guess you kind of touched on this a little bit as far as career like being in the studios and whatnot, but going into college, did you have a plan of your career and an idea of where you were gonna be going?

SPEAKER_02 19:55

So, like I said earlier, when I was it might have been my my senior project or some sort of project in high school, um, a guy who I'm friends with now out of Texas, Gio Washington, he had this amazing website called uh like la studio musicians.net or whatever. I I can't remember how I found it. I don't even know if he has it anymore, but I went on there and you could click, he had like a list of hundreds of players, every instrument. And I I I don't remember if it was I I think my first person I really caught I remember how it was, actually. Okay. I used to watch TV with my mom a lot. Sorry. And we were watching Dancing with the Stars. And if you remember, like back, you know, this is a long time ago now, it's like geez, I don't know, 15 years ago. They had a big orchestra on Dancing with the Stars. And there were these trumpet players, and they'd, you know, it was like this Spanish theme at the top of the show, and there'd be these like trading high trumpets. I'm like, God, who the heck are these people? And I don't know, one way or another through Google, I figured out it was Rick Baptist and this guy Warren Looning doing more research, and I came across this LA studio musician website. I'm like, oh studio musician recording, movies. I'm like, oh yeah, I guess, you know, I started putting all these things together, and then I couldn't get off that website. I learned about Malcolm McNabb and then I discovered Wayne and John Lewis and you know some of the older cats that are are no longer with us. Um, Frank Sabo and Dennis Farius and Tim Morrison. Yeah, Oscar Bashir. I just coming across all these players, I'm like, man, this is what I want to do. This is amazing. But I think reality sets in a little bit, or you know, your fears, whatever. I think when it push came to shove to go to college, I didn't want to be far away from home. So I went to a little school in Western PA that has a pretty good music program, has some North Texas alums teaching there. Uh and I studied with a fabulous trumpet player there by the name of Steve Hawk. And I actually studied with him all throughout high school as well. And he taught me everything about the trumpet. I mean, he wanted me to be able to play lead, he wanted me to be able to blow changes, he wanted me to work on classical playing. The small horns, we were doing pedagogy, and you know, he'd always be making me drill Clark studies and stuff all the time. Very like well rounded. Teacher. I started staying with him in college and it started to become apparent. I I did one semester at his school, it kind of became apparent that like when I was there, I was there for a music education degree. And I'm like sitting in like string class and Woodwin class. I'm like, this sucks. I hate this. And luckily, I decided to know that teaching would not be fruitful for me, and that would not I would not like me being a teacher would not be in the best interest of students. So there were some hard conversations and some tough breakups, but ultimately, like it was clear I just wanted to be a player. And if you wanted to be a player, you have to go where players become players. And it was actually my mom who was kind of pushed me to be like, you should look at that school in Texas you you talk about all the time. It's like, Mom, I'm not good enough to get in there. That's like the mecca. That like North Texas is like a direct pipeline to Los Angeles. I mean, the top call guys are all from North Texas, Gary Grant and Dan Higgins and and Dan Fornero and you know, whatever. Man, I I I can't go out there. But like set up this recording thing at like my local church with uh one of like the music pastors who helped me. We recorded a video of like whatever the required excerpts were and stuff, and then sent that to North Texas, and I ended up transferring. So I went to North Texas, was there for four years. I got my degree in jazz studies and trumpet performance, and I had like 10 different trumpet teachers while I was there. I ended up playing in the one o'clock for six of the eight semesters that I went to school there. And when I was there, like the path was just clearer and clearer, clearer. Like I I'm going to LA, I'm going to LA. Like I was becoming friends with and studying with guys like Blaine and John Lewis, and like that that's where I'm going. But then I met my wife, uh, who at the time was my girlfriend. And we both have like pretty large Italian families, like pretty tight-knit families. And there was just that was like out of the cards. We were not moving to California. Like that that's just a total no-go, no-fly zone. Um, well, okay, crap. Like, you know. Then at the time I was like, well, do I break up with my girlfriend? But I really liked her, and yeah, luckily it's worked out. Um But one of the teachers I was studying with at North Texas, Paul Stevens, who's just a force of nature. I mean, he's untouchable. Brian and I will both say he's the greatest lead player any of the DC bands have ever had in any, like since the beginning of the DC bands. He he is the top above all of us. The things Paul has recorded when he was lead trumper for the Jazz Ambassadors is just untouchable by a lot of us. I'll just I'll have to send you some recordings because it's just scary. He's very terrible. Paul Stevens. Paul Stevens. I did I watched just as like a quick aside, a buddy of mine, Donnie Dias, runs the Rebel Alliance big band who had recorded a lot when I was at school down there, and he'd always be bringing these guests in. These videos come up like all the time on social media. Like, I don't know, they just posted one. They're like, Josh, you sound good, or somebody critiqued me. And I was like, dude, that was like 12 years ago. I don't know how this thing just got posted, you know. But I heard Paul with I won't name air well, I won't name names, but there were like four of like, I'll tell you after the interview, there were like four of like our most beloved lead players that we all grow up wanting to be like. And Brian and I watched in person, Paul demolished every single one of them. They like if Paul was playing, they might have been just standing there going like this. You know, they'd be getting into these like, you know, high note, whatever, tostos, testosterone battles. And Paul would play like a double D that would just rip the band in half. And it's just like sheer power, you know. Anyways, I was studying with Paul and uh he started like really pushing me toward the military band thing. He's like, you know, the premiere bands in DC are are really good jobs. I think you you'd be a great candidate for one, you know. And I was afraid, like, there was I think one of the first gigs was like the Navy Commodore's had like a split lead trumpet opening um that my friend Tyler Muir ended up hat getting, and I didn't apply for that. And Paul was really upset that I didn't do that. But then, anyways, got closer and closer to graduation, and it was the week before I graduated or a couple weeks, um, and there were two openings. There was one in the Armando Note, one in the Army Blues, uh both for Jazz Trumpet. Uh, and I ended up taking both auditions. I was the runner up for the note, and then I three days later I won the Army Blues gig. My wife and I found like a decent middle ground, and that's kind of how I that's kind of how LA went into the sunset and I went to to DC. But now that I have those guys telling me I have the best gig in the world, because things you don't think about maybe when you're 17, 18, 19, you're not thinking about one day maybe if you have kids, are you gonna have health insurance? Or if you retire, you can have a pension in retirement, and you know, do I get paid vacation days, whatever? Yeah, I I do think I have the best job in the world. I wouldn't trade it for anything. You gotta be in the you have to be in the army. So that sometimes that, you know, can can I dunno be a knife in the side at times, but it overall it's it's pretty good. But that's that was kind of like how I ended up at North Texas, wanting to go west and then basically coming back to the East Coast.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah, that's that's crazy. Do you think uh let's say if you had broken up with your girlfriend now wife, would you you have gone to LA and then maybe regretted it and wanted to go back home?

SPEAKER_02 27:07

I mean it's always hard to say, but Yeah, I mean h hindsight's always twenty twenty and I'm in a tough position now where, you know, at least tough position to answer that question because I'm I'm married and I have two kids.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Um one of the hardest things I've ever seen, uh and again I won't name any names, but some players, you know, when you meet your heroes and you get to be friends with them. Craig, I know, talked to you a little bit about this on his episode. Something that I have found that's pretty common among a lot of the players I adore and admire and want to sound like, they're either divorced once, twice, maybe three times. Some of them are estranged from their kids, or maybe they don't have the best relationships with their kids, whatever. And when you're a performer and you're gone at at night, what that means you're not home. And when you're gone at night, that means you're not home when your kids are home. And if you're home during the day, your kids are at school. And so it it's a huge sacrifice for your family to be like a performer, an entertainer, a musician, you know, whatever you want to call it. So knowing what I know now, I don't think I for me personally, I don't think I'd ever go out there. I don't I don't think the balance of what just the I mean, now we live in a time where there's just so many great players and just not enough work. It's it's unbelievably competitive where even just being a good trumpet player is not enough. You gotta get into producing and and composing and contracting, like all these other things that have nothing to do with playing. Uh, and I just want to be a side man. I don't want to start my band. I have no aspirations to record my own record or like I'd rather just be on everybody's record, you know. Just wait for the phone to ring, tell me what time to be there and what clothes I have to have on, you know. And I come home and I pull up the John Deere tractors, and me and my son, we play on the ground and we build a construction site, you know. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, I had I had wanted to be a studio musician for a very long time. I don't know if if if like Claire and I didn't work out, if I would have gone out there. I don't know if I actually would have had the guts to do it. Because it's very cutthroat. But but I mean, truth be told, I say two things. The greatest players on earth live in LA and New York. Absolutely 1,000% not true. Otherwise, those of us that live in other cities wouldn't be flying to those cities to do work. And number two, that that's where all the work is. There's all kinds of work to be had in every major metro area in every major city. And so in DC, I do a lot of studio recording. Uh Tony Cadlick says the only difference between maybe a place like a Chicago and a DC or whatever from like a New York or LA is just the list just isn't as long. But the quality of players is exactly the same. And especially like uh like in DC, we're it's such a unique space where uh like the premier big bands are basically what I would say like our music's symphony orchestras, right? Like if you want to be in the you know one of the greatest orchestral players ever, you go audition for the Chicago Symphony or New York for Harmonic. If you want to be the greatest lead players, like and you want to have a job playing in the big band, where the heck are you gonna go? Army Blues, Airmen and Oat, Jazz Ambassadors, you know, Navy Commodores, maybe Jazz and Lincoln Center. That's pretty much it. If you want to make a salary playing in a big band, and so the quality of players here is is is kind of scarily high. I mean, the bass trombonist in the uh like Army Blues, for example, was a studio musician. I mean, he was really well established and plugged in. He had played with the LA Philharmonic and Bob Florence and Gordon Goodwin, and he was recording, and like he said he just kind of got sick of having to just hustle constantly, and he just wanted the check to come in every two weeks. So he came out here and took a gig. And and now he also works a ton on the outside. He's one of like the best like low brass uh bass bass trombonus tuba players I've ever worked with. But probably because of his background in LA. I'm biased to like I work on the East Coast, but I love West Coast brass playing. It's very different than East Coast brass playing. But, anyways, that's you know, my other tangent about would I have ended up up there? I don't I don't know. It's something we don't talk about and teachers don't, I don't think, discuss enough. Is like trying to really think again, it's hard when you're 18, 19, 20 years old, but to to to really try to think about that family work balance. Because if if you want to do this, this, and this, that's a huge sacrifice on this side. And then if if family's really important to you, yeah, maybe that means you're not gonna record on a John Williams soundtrack ever in your life.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

And that's okay. If you love playing trumpet, you love playing trump, you know. I'm I'm still the guy that like uh it's probably bad for me, but I I'll say yes to any gig, whether it pays five thousand dollars or fifty dollars. I'm like, yeah, sure. I love to play trumpet, you know. I I probably shouldn't do that at this point in my life, but I just, you know, I try not to uh be too discerning or down on certain things. I just like playing. Um so that was that was really important for me as I I think as I got older, I loved my time, certain aspects away from the trumpet, like this, especially family, now my children. Um so I'm I'm still largely able to do what I want to do on the trumpet. And I also realize I don't have to live there to do the things that I want to do there anyways.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah. Yeah, and I I think that's such an important aspect for young players to understand is like, yeah, like of course, LA and New York are like phenomenal places in high musicianship. It's like yeah. But also you can go to DC, you can go to Nashville, you can go to Vegas or like, you know, all these lower lower tier cities that are still the high quality. And yeah, I I like what you said about like Tonya. It's like the list is just shorter.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Yeah, and I wouldn't even call it Yeah, I wouldn't even call it lower tier. I just think the economy is set up that that way, right? Like in New York, they have a bazillion theaters up there. That's just where Broadway was literally born and it still is just there, slowly dying, but it's there. I can maybe give my dark opinion on Broadway, but I I probably shouldn't. And then on the West Coast, that's where the film industry is. You know, the weather's always consistent and stuff like that. And and so the musicians just went where those like certain economies were. But like you look at Nashville, you're not gonna find somebody that can touch Steve Patrick. Yeah. This is not gonna happen. You know? And Steve's another guy, like we talk about, he he flies around a lot because people want his playing for specific projects and stuff. And see, there are a lot of opportunities for young players that they might not be aware of in all kinds of places around the country.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Yeah, and it's I mean, like, like yeah, like you said, like I remember hearing I didn't and I didn't know it was Steve Patrick, but um he did a recording session with Tim Akers in the smoking section. Yeah, take it off, and like he gets to this bridge and Mike listen to him, like, oh, oh, oh, oh, like he's a bad cat, man. Like, wow, that I was like, what just happened? And so it's like, yeah, obviously he's like doing all his stuff there, and then yeah, we'll fly out to different places, which is so it's like, you know, and I think especially these days, it's so different with social media, like you can be picked up by who knows who likes anywhere, and you just do a recording session at home, or like, hey, can we fly you out for this, or do you want to do our tour and blah blah blah? Like so it's like it's so it just I mean it's so different from when especially when we were growing up and through school. Totally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

I mean, that was one of the only reasons I started my Instagram. Well, really, the the the my last year in a one o'clock band, that section is really close to this day. Actually, three out of the five of us are in the premiere bands. The other two are like amazing civilian players working a lot in their cities. One's in Houston and I can't the other one I think might still be in Dallas. But we go back and forth all the time in our uh text thread uh uh about different things, trumpet stuff, whatever. You know, and I lost my train of thought. Oh what was that last thing you just said? Oh my gosh, my dad brain is killing me. What did I I'm losing it to. What did I say? I can't even remember what we were just what you just said, why I was gonna say all that.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

You know, me neither. Maybe I maybe it's the sign we don't need to go that direction.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Maybe we don't need to go that way. My gosh, that's maybe we'll come back later. My brain is terrible.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

No, you're good. Um you might have heard uh Louis's uh podcast episode where he was offered to go on tour with Lewis Miguel, you know, one of the biggest Latin musician artists of you know of the day and whatnot, and then he was like, Oh, we can do this, we can pay off the mortgage and stuff, and it's like his wife just like no. And he's like, Okay, and so it's cool to like and he I remember hearing him when I was in high school, and that when his YouTube channel was still Chicken Tico and stuff. Chicken Tico guy. And so it's like it's interesting that like um you know he's I think he's about our age too, where he's uh in kind of that same position where he's like, Well, I have kids, I gotta like start changing things to to fit the the mold. And it's like, yeah, it's so and f especially since you know you just had your second kid. Uh uh how was and how is having no two kids kind of changed your your of course life, but also like kind of your career at this phase.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

There's some days it feels like I have a hundred kids. Now it's pretty good. Little baby Ella, as Harry calls her, baby Ella's like seven weeks old now. We're getting like a good rhythm. Like he I think is adjusted to like he's cool now that there's like another kid in the house that he has to share attention with and stuff. He still has his moments, um, but he's still little, you know, he'll be three in June. But I think Claire and I are getting a pretty good rhythm for you know now having two kids. You know, it's funny, when Harry was born uh in the military, we get 12 weeks of parental leave. And I took that 12 weeks, I was pretty much off from like June to September. And even when the 12 weeks was up, I was like, there's no way I can go back to work. I'm exhausted, I can't do this. And now with baby Ella, who's number two, I took one week off and I went back to work, and I'm like, yes, it's fine. And still, like I'm getting up in the middle of the night, I'm like, oh, I'm like, feed like this morning was like 2:30. I'm like feeding her with a bottle and I'm whatever, listening to trumpet. You know, but it's it's it's fine. So the the difference in like I guess stress between your first and second, like Claire and I are like, all right, we know the deal, we got this. Now it's just a matter of just volume. We just have more kids now. Yeah, you know, like now we have to feed a baby and we have a toddler running around with a lightsaber.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

So, you know, it it's a lot more to juggle. So when I take a gig now, there is a lot more discussion around like how long am I leaving Claire by herself with both kids? Is she okay? Uh it's just it's just way more to bounce than even just one. So I have to be like much more discerning with what I choose to play. And she's pretty cool. I mean, she's very supportive, so much so that a couple weeks ago, I I remember why I brought up my friends, I'll say incredibly quickly, they pushed me. I remember in this group chat, they all had Instagrams and they really pushed me to start one, and I didn't really want to. And they're like, well, just start one. We can make videos and you know, we'll we can all see what each other's doing. So it's like, okay, fine. So I'm now I have an Instagram and it's it's like whatever, like 10,000 followers or something like that. And actually, that's how I got this gig. Somebody in a major orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, heard found me on Instagram and heard me and was like, Whoa, he does like it looks like he plays with other big orchestras. So I was gonna play with um Atlanta Symphony beginning of February, and and Ella was born June 5th. And I was like, man, I just I don't know. I have no idea. And Claire was like, well, you gotta do it. That's a great opportunity. Like, that's not just anybody gets called to to do that kind of thing, you know. I'm like, yeah, but this this is a lot to figure out. And then we got closer and closer to when I would leave, and it was like a five-day period. I was just gone. I was like, no, I think I I'm gonna tell them I just can't. Like, I think I'm just gonna call them. Just like I I'm sorry, I just I have a newborn at home, whatever. So, as far as like what does it take now, put the family in the car, drove five hours to Pittsburgh, they stayed with my in-laws, which was great. They got to spend time with the grandkids, my son got to play with his cousins, got to see grandma and grandpa, he saw my parents, my family.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

Claire had like all the help and support she needed so she wasn't by herself. So then I flew out of Pittsburgh to Atlanta and I was gone in Atlanta for five days. And I went back to Pittsburgh, stayed for a couple more days with the family so I could visit, uh and then we drove five hours to back home. Probably if I have to do another trip like that, until like Ella gets you know a little bit older and can sleep through the night and maybe isn't, you know, crying every couple hours for something. Like Harry's like kind of self-sustainable. If I'm really busy and I have Harry, I can pick, okay, here's your cheesecrackers, here's Thomas the train. Buddy, I need 10 minutes, please. You know, yeah, you can't do that with her yet. Until then, that's probably what my gigs are gonna look like. Like, all right, Clark, I gotta fly out of Pittsburgh Airport, like we're driving home. So it's really challenging, and that's kind of like what I was talking about a little bit ago. Like, everyone's different. I will never judge anybody for how much or how little they work. Like it's it's a very personal thing. Some of it is informed by how we were raised, what sort of religious or faith beliefs we had. Like, there's all kinds of things where we live. For us, a family is is really important. And I don't we only get 18 years with our kids, really. You know, and then they move out. Like, of course, I I see my parents, I love them, but sometimes I'll go a week or two without talking to them, go like crap, I haven't talked to my parents. Like, because I'm a parent now, too, and like I'm either working or I get home, I can take care of the kids, pick up Harry from school, you know, whatever. Getting to take care of feed yourself, you know. Um so it's a it's a lot, it's a huge um juggling responsibility. But like in hindsight now, Harry's gonna be three. Let's say he graduates when he's uh 18. I'll be do the quick math, I'll be 46 when he goes to college. I I mean, people in LA, sometimes at 46, still aren't quite at that top 1% of like the being the number one or number two guy on the contractors list, even in their early like in their 40s. And so, like again, Craig, I keep bringing up Craig because he's um just such a practical trumpet player. He always tells me he's like things he learned. I'm like, dude, it's like you're not gonna get that time back. And when they leave and go to college, those gigs will still be there for you, and people will still want you, you know. And so I think about that a lot. And it's hard, like it's hard to say no, but there is a certain kind of this will sound weird, but I do think there's a certain kind of value you can give yourself by saying no to people. Yeah, people want you to play. I mean, I've had a couple times, I just tell people very honestly, like, and I I would love to work with you, but I just I've already got a lot of stuff on my calendar, and I just I I can't strain myself that much more. Like I just, you know, my wife's at home with two kids, you know. And then they say they call me a couple days later, man, we I we really want you on this gig. I'm like, I I just can't do it. And maybe the third time they call you, and they're like, all right, here, this is how much money we can offer you, blah, blah, blah. And I talked to Claire, whatever, and she's she's like, Yeah, we can build this or that, you know. And they're like, okay, fine. So I'll go play the gig, you know, and then maybe the next month I'm like, nope, I'm not working. I'm gonna take a whole bunch of time off, whatever. Or maybe the army's busy, which is cool, um, which is kind of nice. The army does things a lot of times during the day. So Harry's at school, so we get to be home at the same time together. Or studio studio recordings aren't happening at night, so I'll do those in the morning and come home, you know. Like I said, there's no right or wrong answer. And I think as we go through certain experiences, uh, I don't know, I just try to learn from them and and try to make a better decision next time. You know, with Atlanta, once I got the schedule, I'm like, man, I got a lot of downtime. I can't, why I got a whole day off, two whole days off, or I'm not doing anything. My wife's at home with both kids, really. I can't this is I can't be on a vacation. And so I talk to them, and you're like, listen, man, I just I need this, or I need this overage, or I want double scale, or you know, you start negotiating. So that the trip is actually worth your while for something. Obvious, obviously, it's worth my while to play. I love the music, I love meeting the people, whatever. But I've got three other human beings I'm responsible for. And so, what possibly can I do? It's like, okay, this is now financially worth it for my family. Like, this is a good investment for us because daycare is expensive, uh, baby formula is expensive. Harry is just growing like crazy and eating me out of my pantry. You know, he always wants snacks all day long. So it's like, okay, financially, like, you know, Claire wanted me to do the gig. She was really cool about that. But then it also, like, again, practically was like, okay, this is financially, this is a good choice for my family. We could do all of this stuff with this money now. You know, whatever. We always have projects we want to work on, investments for the kids, or you know, whatever. So it's just, man, I just I tried honestly, take it a day at a time. I mess up a lot. You know, I can I can tell you it and and you know, uh, you would probably know this as well with your family. Like, I very quickly have learned from my wife when too much is too much. It's like, okay, sorry. And then I learned to scale back. Yeah. You know, yeah. Um a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. But I I I I was watching this interview last night of Ben Sass, who was uh senator for like nine years, represented the state of Alaska. Or N Nebraska, sorry. And uh basically the same state, you know. Yeah. The same place. And he got diagnosed with like very extremely aggressive and metastasized stage four pancreatic cancer. And they gave him like 90 days to live. And so he's trying to get the word out. He's an extremely brilliant and educated guy. Uh, I love, I really loved his politics because he was like very independent. He'd break from the par his party a lot. He just he did like what he felt was was right, you know, and he wanted to get the heck out of DC. He didn't want to be like a lifelong politician, which is why I like him. Anyways, interview asked him, like, what is one of your regrets? And he said something like, I wish I could, I I wish I could relive or refund my time, talking about like in his 20s and 30s, what a workaholic he was, trying to get to this success, what whatever he deemed as being success for him and his family, for him for his career to set up his family. But during that time he was being a workaholic, that's when he had his family. So by the time his kids are like old enough to be off at school, he's where he wanted to be, but they're gone now. You know, and so I I try to, I don't know. I saw I just saw that last night and I came home, like uh I was listening to it on the way home from something. I like was kind of sad when I Claire's like, Are you okay? You know, like yeah, I'm fine, you know. And I wondered, like, man, should I just quit Trump it all together? I don't know. Or should I just have a day job? You know, of course I'm not going to, but I mean, you know, do you got a little one too? Like it's just they're hard questions, and nobody has the right answer except you and and your spouse, and you just have to figure out a day at a time, you know, and and people have to be cool with that. And at least my experience in the DMV, people have been cool with that, you know. So I and I and honesty is always the best policy. Like somebody will call and you're like, Man, I'd love to work for this guy. He hasn't called me in a while, or maybe I didn't work, you know, whatever. Uh maybe he hasn't called before, you know, and I'd love to, but right now it's just not a great time. Like I've got a one-month-old baby and a toddler. That's a really big time commitment for the money. And if you're like usually flat up with them, uh, just be shoot straight. They'll oftentimes work with you, or or they're just cool. They're like, okay, man, I I totally get it. I've got kids too, you know?

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

So and it was what I was saying too, like at the beginning, uh uh like about allowing us to make mistakes. Again, like in this situation, I just think the more the more that we can start to give each other grace and and not treat the music industry like it's just so unbelievably cutthroat, and there's 10 trumpet players waiting at the studio door to replace me for when I missed the first high G. I I think this would I think it would be a much healthier um environment. And it is it is healthy, relationship to relationship, player to player and stuff. But overall, I still think there's a lot of just like uh we don't have time for BS and messing around, whatever. I have found that as long as you shoot straight with people, people are can be pretty empathetic and understanding for different situations. You know, I'd gone through some health stuff in December, and I had to bail off one like very big gig, like big televised. It was a national broadcast. Emmanuel Etchum from Nashville was gonna play, like I was playing with a bunch of Nashville players, and I was gonna be playing lead trumpet. Tony Caddock ended up subbing for me, who is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Yeah, he's all right.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

I'll never I'll probably never play that gig now because he did it because he's amazing he's amazing. I love Tony. But I caught I remember telling the contractor she tried calling me when I was in the hospital. My wife and I were able to get a hold of her and just told her what was going on. And her first response was like, I'll make sure that we're praying for you and we want you to have a fast recovery, blah, blah, blah. Now who knows? She could have hung up the phone and be like, screw that guy, we're never calling him again. But knowing knowing her, that was pr I was I was like, I don't know, I was very touched that that was her first response. Because sometimes you don't come across contractors like that. They just get pissed off that now their first drama player is out. But I I was in the hospital, you know, for a while. And her first concern was making sure like she ended up texting, making sure Claire, my wife was okay and stuff. I I think the more we can do that for each other, maybe the better a performer's life can be for people that want to have families. You know. That's been one of my goals, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Yeah, and like I think in my very first chapter in the book, it's like, if you want to have a family, like here's kind of like the reality of what that looks like if you want to be a musician and trying to share these experiences. Because I think sometimes we get as young players, at least for me, it's like, wow, like this is the greatest thing, and these players and these people, and like this is this is what you do, and yes, yes, yes, it's like, yeah, this is great. Also, here's what like like that's the point point of the book. A lot of is like the also part, like it's not just I'm gonna be a studio trumpet player and that's it, and that's my job. Like, well, also, there's like here's the word from those studio players, and it's not it's not exactly what you're thinking. And yeah, there's even for me with my family recently. Well, I'll share this story and then we'll maybe maybe move on. Yeah, do we have this topic hard, but like yeah, but uh a couple weeks ago we had two weeks of just like I was gone with a lot. I had really there was like a Monday, got home from like my rehearsals that I run. Good. Tuesday night, had a late rehearsal, didn't get home till like 11. Wednesday night, we had some bands uh that I run that were playing at the state capitol, didn't get home till 10, 10:30. Thursday night, I left for a music educator conference and was gone from Thursday all day Friday, got home at like 10 p.m. on Saturday, and then it was Super Bowl Sunday, and then we went up to my what my fa uh my wife's family, and we were there, you know, busy. Then I come back Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I had this Broadway gig at a local high school where I was, you know, didn't get home until 10, 10:30 and whatnot. And finally Friday comes around and can be home, and then Saturday was Valentine's Day, and I was like, no, no Valentine's Day gigs, no nothing. Like I was gone for those two weeks, and it was it was tough for our situation, our family, and it was a lot of time for my wife to be away, and she was like, Let's not do that again. And I'm like, Yeah, that was that was that was not great. Better care of like the schedule and the calendar in the future, because that was it was a lot.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

It's hard. Yeah, I mean, you want to take those opportunities, you want to do the cool stuff, but like when you take the gig, that forces your wife to take the gig. So and she she doesn't have somebody to lean on, so she's tired and comes home. Like my wife's a school counselor, she deals with kids all day. And like, man, when I'm playing a Broadway show, eight shows a week, I'm like, I don't know, I just try to think like, man, she comes home from work every day and it's just her, like every day. So you you bet, like when I come home at night, I'm making sure the dishwasher's empty, the kitchen is clean, the sinks empty. I'm trying to wake up in the morning before her, get Harry ready for school, get his breakfast made, get her breakfast made, whatever. Anything you can possibly do to lighten the load on your spouse, you know, because like it's hard, you know. And and yeah, as our kids get older, the gig that we're playing, you know, people don't talk about this. Again, Craig, I I can't bring him up enough because he's another big mentor of mine. Uh I'm playing a show this night, but over here I'm missing my son's baseball game. That sometimes that's that's tough to, you know, to come to terms with, and and and trying to find that balance is it's very delicate.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's necessarily a right answer, you know, like kind of what we said, but but like working through it and I making the effort, I think, is the where to start at least. So yeah, I think yeah, we've covered that topic really well, which is great, and I think that's again one of the points of the book. The also. We've called we've covered the also here, which is I like that. Yeah, also. Yeah. So you know, we've been talking early on in the interview about different players and going back and like Oscar Bashir and Warren Looney and all these people that I'm still learning about, and for young players, it's like, who? Who's that? Like, we know maybe who Phil Smith is or or Tom Hootin and some of these players, but like who's who was before them and whatnot. So kind of what is your thought and opinion on for young players on learning the history of players and of the music and why that's important. If it is important and why and if so, why?

SPEAKER_02 52:12

I I mean I think in any career, I think your decisions and choices are are so much more well informed if you know of the choices that came before you. So whether that means being president of the United States, you should probably know things about other tumultuous times in history so that we don't repeat those, right? They always say like we're bound to repeat it. Um I I do just think if you're serious about our art form, in a lot of ways we're historians, that we should absolutely be creating new music all the time. But the way we create something new is by knowing what I don't want to say what was old, but working from what like our forefathers laid what groundwork they laid for us so that it makes sense of how did we get from Mozart to today, the music we have now? Like, how did that happen? You know, and all the branches of the tree that came off of that. Um, I just think that's something that like a generally like a like an intelligent person who never wants to stop educating themselves and bettering themselves, that's what we should all do. And that's universal for for any craft or work that we have, just constant studying of whatever, right? Like if you want to be the world's best lawyer or judge, you should probably know like all these like super important, famous, you know, controversial cases that came before the Supreme Court and whatever over the course of our lives, whatever. In the same way as trumpet players, I'm trying to study and learn and listen to as many players as I possibly can. And that's gonna better inform, I just have a better understanding of all the music and how we got to where we we got. But then, you know, it's informed my style, my phrasing, how I choose to play certain things. And then just from like a very practical standpoint, producers and writers and stuff and rangers, they still very much write this way. You're going to be on a recording session for a toothpaste commercial, and whatever it's gonna have some sort of plunger thing on there, and all it's gonna say is a la Cootie Williams.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

I mean, if you don't know who or a la Harry James, if you don't know who that is, you're in a boat without a paddle. And maybe the conductor doesn't know, but maybe you could skate through it, but like you gotta know who that is, you know?

SPEAKER_01 54:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

Um like there was a story Rick told me on a session with Warren. Warren Looning is said to this day to be like the most versatile player that's ever worked in in Hollywood. I mean, he recorded some of the most beautiful classical solos on Jerry Goldsmith's movie The River. Beautiful solos. Amazing, amazing jazz improviser, of course, a great lead player. Like if you listen to the old Carol Burnett theme, Warren played lead trumpet, just an unbelievable player. They're on a session, producer, somebody goes back to Warren, they want something, they're like, you know, I want this kind of in the style of Louis Armstrong, and and and Warren says, Well, like what what era, what decade? You know? And I don't know if the producer thought that like Warren's kind of being facetious or whatever, but Warren was being dead serious.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

He knew how Lewis's playing had evolved and changed slightly over the course of his life. And he knew how to emulate that. That's crazy to me. That level of of detail. But if I'm sitting on a gig and and and and it's kind of the same way why I've got 9,000 mutes. I have found over the course of my career that even if people don't quite know, they know that the excellence and you get called back because of the small details. For instance, really good, like up-and-coming young crooner in the city who's like kind of gone kind of viral online and stuff. And he's getting some good gigs, and I think he's gonna really become something. He's hired me now to play some of his gigs. And he it's all these old Sinatra charts, Dean Martin chart, whatever. And and I just go full Conrad Gazo on these things.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Now Conrad's one of my favorite players, anyways. I I have think I'll have a lot of that influence naturally. So maybe I'd use a vibrato that I wouldn't always use. Maybe I play with some of the cha like the little kiss-off things that Gazo would do that I wouldn't quite want to do in another situation. Whatever. So for him as a singer, he doesn't know like, man, you sound just like Conrad Gazo from Frank Sinatra coordinate. Like, I love that you're doing that. All he knows is that you sound like the trumpet player that played for Frank Sinatra. Yeah. And that's that to me, that's a big difference. Or if you're playing, um I I remember a piano player on Broadway commented one time we we were doing these previews uh for a show I got offered up there to play trumpet on, and there was a moment that said tight cut mute. And even trumpet players are my cut mace, how many people like to have their heads in the sand and they don't know anything about you know like what a tight cut mute is. So I put like one of my mica mutes in or Ray Robinson real, I just hug the bell and everything, and that and he goes, Man, is it that's your cut mute? I said, Yeah, yeah, what what about it? You know, he's like, That's that's like exactly what that was supposed to sound like. It's what you have written. I know a lot of players that would just use their same the same cut mute, whether it says kite cup, tight cup, or cut mute, they they don't care, or they don't know, you know, or they don't care enough to make that delineation. So as far as like studying all these players and doing all this stuff, I mean I will go down the rabbit hole. What gear did they play? What mutes did they use in that era? What recording, what did they play on this recording, whatever? And so if I'm in a situation where I know that even if they're not saying it directly, that person wants that thing, I will deliver that thing to them. Um and I have found that even if they don't know that's what you're doing, you know, music's an RL art form, they hear the difference. And from an early age when I moved here, that was how I really cemented uh a lot of the work that I have now. That even when I got it, was probably too young to have it all to have all the things I was doing. But I I was always very serious about like getting into the weeds in the small details, so that if you get hired to play a trad gig, it's not enough to just be a great jazz trumpet player. Like I'm gonna play cornet, I'm gonna sound just like Ruby Braff, or I'm gonna sound like Dick Cathcart, or I'm gonna sound like Bobby Hackett, and people notice the difference. Rather than, oh, I'll just bring my trumpet and my 3C and do my thing. No, I'm gonna bring my cornet and whatever the mutes those guys use at that time, and I'm gonna avoid playing too much bebop language and enclosures and whatever, play more diatonically, and they hear that they hear people hear the difference, and then they want you because that's what the music is supposed to sound like. And so you know, some people could say you're sacrificing your own voice, and I I don't think so. Like, there's still many times, many situations I can just do my thing, but I enjoy, like I really enjoy stepping into history to recreate some of that stuff because that's what I grew up listening to. So if somebody asks me to do a Harry James thing, I'm all in, of course. Smith I play lead trumpet for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, and we have a concert this week on the theme, they're calling it like jazz with a Cuban tinge or something like that. And there's this Prez Prado thing, cherry blossoms and apple blossoms and cherry white, whatever, whatever it's the tune is. It's it we've all heard it's like uh and it's just like big vibrato, big bright sound, like very like Harry James, like is what how Prez Prado's band recorded it. And so one of the other players had the solo part, and they would have sounded great doing it. And they were like, Josh, this is all you, you have to play this. And so I took it and I said, Well, somebody's gotta play the first trumpet part now. And so we negotiated and somebody took it, and I was like, Well, just play the solo, and like, no, it has to that you you were the right person to play that thing, you have to do it. And so I, you know, I'll play it on the gig. And so that that goes a long way in your study, and it doesn't always have to be like everybody all of the time, but being able to have that thing or just know of enough people to recreate the essence, so to speak. Like if somebody says, I want kind of a Chet Baker thing, you know, you're gonna play with a warmer, kind of fluffier, airy sound with not a whole lot of vibrato, and you're gonna play with a lot of space. A lot of times when people say they want it to sound like miles, they just mean put a Harmon mute in. You know, or whatever whatever. Yeah. Um, but but knowing those kind of things, I think are very important from just like a very practical standpoint. Oh yeah. Like we've we've gone back and forth about like Broadway shows. Like, I am very players know that if sometimes on certain shows, if they come in with a certain set of mutes, I I will get very upset. Like, do not, do not, please, do not walk in to Gypsy or Thoroughly Modern Millie with a Dennis Wick cup mute. That is the worst possible sound you could have for a show like that. I was playing with Seth McFarlane one time, and Rob, Cher and I were splitting the first and second parts, and Rob plays a Dennis Wick cup mute. I would not get off his rear end about it. And he's like, I know, like, it's just what I've played since high school, man. I just, you know, and those guys out there, like, you can't miss under the microphone. He's like, I just know this mute so well. I'm so used to the way it plays. I'm like, Rob, that's I'd rather you blow into a dirty sock than play a wick cup mute on these like Sinatra charts. I would not let him live it down.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

But but but that's that's just like uh that's why I think it's just so important. Um, you know, are you never gonna get called again if you if it doesn't sound exactly like Harry James or whatever? I don't know. But what I have found in my career is that going that extra step to know those things, it has secured a lot of work for me over uh maybe other other great players. Like, how do you how do you discern your how do you how do you make a differentiation between yourself and another great player? What's gonna make a contractor say, oh, let me call Josh, let me call Jaden, whatever. People know that if they call me, like, I'm gonna come show up to their gigs with different stuff every time, but like very intentionally, like, okay, what is this type of music? What would it sound best on? Or like, how do I want to phrase, you know, whatever, rather than just going in and just being a good trumpet player, right? Which is good, right? That's like the start. I've always taken a lot of personal pride in not necessarily my playing, but I'm always magnifying like as many times possible to try to figure these things out in the situations where I can recreate all that stuff. And that's why I don't know, that's why I think it's really important to to to study these players and to know what they were doing at that time, uh whatever time they were playing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

Yeah, absolutely. And that's we've touched on some stuff that like light bulb moments again from a mic. Of course, yeah, like that. Like, I didn't think the conversation was going all the all this way, but it like it's yes, like that makes so much sense. Especially these days, like in its you know, musician work, you know, has been in decline for like a hundred years, you know, it just like keeps going down. So like more and more that's like I want to be a trumpet player is like the more and more it's like good luck, you know, like it's tough, you know. It's and so finding those ways to differentiate yourself and like secure the work, like that's important to know, you know, and only the people who are willing to put in that work are gonna have that edge. And I think that's like something I hadn't even considered as like as you know, it was studying the players, but also like really studying the players and really studying the music and like everything you're talking about with the equipment, the gear, the sound, and you know, even with the war and loon and like what eras do you want of of this genre and this player? Like, if I feel like that yeah, it can give you such an edge. And I those are the kind of things I wish that were like taught in schools.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

That's well, I think I think like um I mean this is a whole other conversation, but because I do all of that magnification in my own study, a lot of players ask me, how did you do this? Where can I find this? Where can I find that? And rarely does my answer actually appease those people asking the questions because I I'm at least personally convinced there's like two things I I can't teach you. I can't teach you sound, but you have to develop your own concept of sound. I can give you tons of recordings and say, here's Conrad Gozo, one of the greatest lead players on earth. Here's all these things he did. Here's whoever, here's here's Conti Condoli, all these solos. I can't create your sound for you, and I can't teach you how to get that sound. It's just years and years of listening, regurgitating, listening, regurgitating. It's like our children. I have yet to this day sat down and taught my kid anything about language. Right. But he has full conversations with me from nothing more than just listening to my wife and I converse with each other, converse with him, maybe say things to like, and as they get older, they just pick up on things. And then even before they start kindergarten, he's having full conversations with me, but he can't write yet. Um, he can't read yet. I mean, he's not even three, right? But he knows the English language, which is kind of crazy, actually, when you think about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

These little kids go into kindergarten, they can converse with you no problem, but they can't read it and they can't write it. And and so the most important thing we can do is listening. So I can't teach you how to have these sounds, and I can't teach you how to have their style. Like people will be like, Man, how do you know like when you pick to bend a note in a phrase or like of God's? I'm like, I I I don't I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know. I listened to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald, I listen to a lot of Sarah Vaughn, two like very prominent scat singers. Try to play like the way they'd sing it, you know? Yeah, or just from years and years of listening to these players, now it's just second nature, right? Like you grew up in another part of the country, you might have a certain thing in the way you speak. Like something that we do that I didn't know until I moved to Texas. Apparently, in Pennsylvania, we like raise our pitch of our voice at the ends of questions. Like, we'll say, like, hey, do you want to go get some lunch? Apparently that's weird to some people. I've never noticed that because that's just where everyone, where I'm from, that's how we talk. I don't know. Um or why in Texas they have like a draw. That's just what everyone does down there. That's what the little kids growing up, it's what they're surrounded by. And so to develop this sound and the style, I've spent my entire life just immersing myself in this music, digging for the most obscure recordings. Like, I'm not trying to find Conrad Gozo with Frank Sinatra anymore. I'm trying to find the weirdest stuff he possibly did with maybe somebody I might not even be aware of. Or I found this recording of him with Bing Crosby that nobody's ever told me about. And I'm like, holy crap, this is some of the best playing I've ever heard from him. What? Why does nobody talk about this record? You know, thank God for Google. Because if it wasn't for Google, my last thing, sorry, my very last thing I'd say of why this is so important. A lot of these things I learned from the the generation prior. I learned these things talking to Wayne and asking Wayne question questions, talking to Rick, talking to Tony Cadlick, talking to whomever, guys that were on the road with Harry James, because Harry's not with us obviously, but I want to know things. And so I've never, ever slowed down in my persistence to find people, and I want to ask them questions. Pay people for their time and ask them to sit down with you. I've never met a trumpet player that I've done that with that has like refused, you know. And so a lot of this stuff, again, thank God for Google and and the internet and whatever, but a lot of this stuff is not written down. It's not. And so there's no other way to learn it than word of mouth. And and at least for me, I'm not always willing to give it away for free. Because it took me decades of my life to figure this stuff out and to learn these things. And so when a kid's like, hey blah blah blah, I'm like, here's the resources, you know, let me know when you find it, or if you need help finding it. Well, can you just blah blah blah? Like, no, no, no. I used to get mad because there was a well-known New York player who would do that. Like he had secrets, and we're friends now, but um I used to like that, man. Why won't you just tell me? Why do you act like this? Like, why do you just but he and now as an adult realize how valuable that lesson was. He was always saying, You just have to do your homework, man. I want you to do your homework. You if you want to do this, you have to seek this out. And he always talks about Tiger Woods. Like, do you realize if you want to play golf like Tiger Woods, you need to be up at four in the morning and you work out, and then you go to the course, and maybe you're playing till five, six o'clock, or training different things. He's like, if you do that for a week, I'll guarantee most people probably don't actually want to play golf like Tiger Woods, you know. But yeah, people kind of underestimate in some sense, like how hard it really is. I started really digging into that stuff when I was like in ninth or tenth grade and I discovered that LA Studio Musicians website. Yeah. Since that time, I've never stopped. It drives my wife crazy. I I'm on YouTube constantly in the internet. You know, I'm never I I'm not usually just like doom scrolling, but she's like, what are you put your phone down, you know, we'll be like in bed. Like I don't bedtime's the worst because I don't want to go to sleep. I'm back reading and trying to find like I just discovered Marky Markowitz. She's like, who the hell is that? You know? And I'm like, what do you mean? He's such a he's like recorded with everybody in New York City. And then if I said that name to a ton of players today, I guarantee most, if not all of them, would have no idea who Marky Markowitz is. I wouldn't. I discovered him a couple years ago. And then as soon as I found the name, I'm like, well, I have to know more. Down the rabbit hole I go. You know, and that's just yeah, that's what keeps me going and inspired all the time, you know, finding these new things that are exciting to listen to. And so those are all the reasons why I think it's super important that we know as much as we possibly can about uh, you know, our instrument and the people that play it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:57

Yeah, absolutely. It just uh yeah, even throughout this uh all this research, you know, I have a chapter on theme parks and been like interviewing some theme park musicians and stuff, and it's like, oh yeah, have you talked with Mark Zauss or Chad Shootman? And like I know I've like I heard of Chad and like before, and I was like, okay, Mark Zauss, and like look up like a video of both him playing. I'm like, Mark is ridiculous. Yeah, I see some of his stuff, I was like, oh my who are you? Yeah, who are you? And so I'm actually gonna probably chat with him in a couple weeks, which is like something. But uh yeah, it's just like dang. Like and you wouldn't know. It's it's not like and it's kind of funny um when when it's like you know, oh, Wayne Burger on Bobby Shu and these people, it's like, oh yeah, like everybody knows them, but like if you say Larry Hall or uh or John Lewis or Mark Zalas, or like people that they're like, who's that? It's like man, like they're I mean, and of course each player has their own theme, what they're known for, and all that all that stuff, but it's like they're all like right there, it's like just it's kind of funny how like the trumpet popularity is so up and down.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:04

Like, yeah, it's like the same people. People know what uh they just know what's like easily accessible, and it's like what I was saying, like some people don't want to do the digging, you know. Yeah, like I named two players, I don't know if you know them, but I'll name them for your listeners. One of my all-time favorite lead players on earth, all my friends would tell you, his name's Don Thomas. Don was one of these players, easily could have wiped the floor with everybody in Los Angeles or New York, had a family, and just didn't want to move out of Dallas. And at the time, though, that he was working in Dallas, this is several decades ago, Dallas was called the third coast. There was so much studio work. I mean, unbelievable amount of like TV stuff there. And Don played first trumpet on everything. And Doc is still alive today. I will get him on the phone and we'll ask him, Doc, who's your favorite lead trumpet player? Without dropping a beat, he's gonna say Don Thomas. And Ella Fitzgerald, there's a lot of interviews of her that are written down that I've found that ever since she played in Fort with the Fort Worth Symphony, she said she had the best first trumpet player she had ever worked with in her career. That was Don Thomas. And I just say that to kind of show that like he's not just some dude in Texas. Um I have to remember to send you Paul Stevens, Dawn Thomas, and there was one other guy I think I wanted to send you. But but Dawn uh yeah, is one of those players and then uh jazz improvisers that I just love and I think it's really influenced my playing a lot, is a guy named Don Fagerquist, uh, who was major LA studio player in the 50s and 60s. Saw him sitting next to Conrad Gazo and Cappy Lewis and uh John Audino, who was quite young at the time but was was out there, but Brisboy, whatever. Don't an unbelievable jazz player. I'm just like, man, it's what I want to sound like, you know? And then but nobody knows who he is. Man, he played with everybody back then. But unless you're doing the research or you're talking, that's kind of how these names like peter out, and then nobody knows who they are, you know. So like Harry James, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:58

That's at his time, him and his wife were like the richest couple in America. He was married to this superstar named Betty Grable. I mean, Harry was literally the best way historians can describe it is that Harry was the Taylor Swift of 1944. Untouchably rich and famous. And now you say it and everyone's like, who the heck is that? You know, or people think I named my son because of Harry Potter. And I'm like, no, it's not why. No, you know, you know, these people like kind of fall out of popularity mainstream or whatever, and then even amongst trumpet players, if we just stop talking about them, poof, they they're gone. You know, and so we can't let we can't let them go away. We just can't we can't let it happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:38

We need to know yeah, and it's like that's like uh part of that like in it's like this book. I'm like, I want to include everything, but it's like there's then it'd be like 5,000 pages and stuff. It's like, oh man, what like be longer than the Bible man? That'd be a lot of work. I don't know if I want to do that, but yeah, like it's like oh like here's you know the key people of people you all know, but it's like oh there's so many more. Again, I just learning about the the history and the and the everything I think, yeah, makes makes such a difference. I didn't we touched on it very, very briefly, but kind of trumpet education, you know, if I feel like a lot of players are playing and teaching privately or or nowadays it's like there's more courses being online or online stuff, so love to hear well on that and uh you know positives and negatives on both sides, and uh anything else you ha have to say about that. It looks like we might be here for a little while.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:35

Well, I don't want to dig too de too deep or shoot myself in the foot. I will say though, I think largely the whole online course thing is just total BS. Like, oh, buy my course for X amount of thousands of dollars, and like all these people, because I I've had friends on the inside, like they get together in their business meetings and they're they're all follow. I'm not gonna name who they are, but there's like a couple of people who have gotten incredibly rich because of this. But they create these online courses that you buy into and you meet X amount of times, this blah blah blah blah blah. Um, they're in it to make a living. I mean, I have a friend that can't move to the United States, was struggling to make money, so came up with a course so that he could make money. Now, I'm not gonna speak to whether like he's passionate about teaching or not. I don't know. I haven't sat down with a lesson for him. I will die on this hill. Lessons are best best done one-on-one, in person, and not with just some recorded crap that you're paying a subscription to. And I get it, we have to make a living. If you're freelancing, it can be tough. Lessons are an easy way to get some money. But I think the responsibility is if if you're if you're gonna use students in teaching as a ways to provide for yourself monetarily and financially secure your family, you now have the responsibility of providing the best education to the people that are paying you. Like the people that are giving you money, they're the consumer. They are seeking something out, and it's and it's up to us to deliver, not just do some BS, like, oh yeah, here's your Clark book, blah, blah, blah. Let's do this. Like, each student is different. Each student needs something totally different. This student, I'll tell them to buzz the mouthpiece, this student, I'll tell them don't buzz. It's not like it's it's gonna you, you know, it's gonna go backwards for you. Like every student is is very individual, and there's nothing wrong with making money teaching. I mean, I I charge a decent amount for lessons. That's just because that's what my time is worth. Like, I just am I gonna lock my myself in my office for five hours while my kids are screaming out there, you know. But most people know that if they've taken lessons with me, I'm always gonna go longer than an hour. I'm always gonna go on and on and on. And hopefully, like we're gonna really dig into their questions. I don't have like a gimmick that I just do, which is why some people aren't good at taking lessons with me, or I might not be the right teacher for them.

unknown 1:15:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:42

Because if somebody's coming to me, I say, listen, you're paying me, what do you want to know? Like, I don't have just like a oh here, do this thing on trumpet. Because there's no there's no book that works for everybody. Everybody is so different. Even just like in like Reinhardt, like I push up to play high, Brian McDonald pulls down to play high. We go the totally opposite direction from our ombursures. So if I taught everybody like, oh, well, you have to push the mouthpiece, it ascends on the teeth as you play high. That's just not true for half the population. And so I'm just not a fan of like these courses and one size fits all and this doesn't matter, this or that, like, do my thing, this, like, I just think it's all hogwash. I think it's just it preys on students that are trying to get better. And again, I'm not saying that maybe there are people out there who are like genuinely trying to do something right, but I still would argue with them. Like, I just don't think that's the way music education should be. There can be helpful things, like Bobby Shu, for instance. Anyone can go to Bobby's website, and I would highly encourage it. If you're having any playing issues or just have questions, go on there, buy as many Skype lessons as you can, so PayPal link, whatever, and you can sit down, you know, from him and Albuquerque met New Mexico and me in DC, and we can discuss whatever. Like, Bobby, this weird thing's been going on with my jaw. What should I do? I might not have to be in person to get that question answered, right? Um like if I'm doing weekly lessons with a kid in high school, you need to be sitting here in my office so we can work on this stuff together. But a lot of the things I do now are like troubleshooting sometimes with other pro players. I can do that online. And it's it seems like it's been really helpful to players to do that. Um, but I refuse to come out with some sort of standardized course or online thing people can buy. I I just I'm not a fan of that, you know. I still think the best way we can learn is through a one-on-one relationship conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:26

Yeah, yeah, I I I agree a hundred percent of that. It's like that's the that's the the best way, but I'd be lying if I would said I'd never thought about designing a course, you know, like Yeah, I mean it can be lucrative, it's it's very tempting.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:41

Yeah, I just always try to ask myself that like when I'm booking lessons, I'm like, man, am I doing this for the best interest of the students? And there'll be time like I haven't taught lessons in several months now. I've just been too busy, and I just know that those would be the first things I would start to sacrifice, be like, oh crap, I gotta go teach. And you sit down and log, and you're like, okay, what do you want to do? And you just get them through the lessons so you can go off to what you're doing. Yeah, and it's not the that's not the right way to be teaching. So I've like shut down my studio for a while until like Ella's a little bit older and I can like really devote some time to them again. Because I need to be able to do that. If I'm gonna be teaching, that door's shut, and either the students here and we're working, or you know, we're troubleshooting some sort of brass playing issue online or something like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:26

Yeah, and I I think that's yeah, that's that's great. I think and that you know, part of the book is like private teaching, you know, like here's some tips on private teaching and online and stuff, and then it's like, but I feel like I kind of ha I still have to include like, hey, there's this other side of it, this new thing of these courses and this these mash classes and like the pros and cons and and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:46

Yeah, I would say I I would just say quickly, yeah, you know, just use your best judgment. So for instance, uh if if like a certain car, like Ford, I don't want to throw an American company on the bus, but Ford, people a lot of times like that it's an acronym, it means fix or repair daily, right? Yeah, I don't want to buy a Ford for that reason. I know people that are just plagued with issues. And I like my cars how I like my trumpets, Japanese. They don't break, nothing happens to them, you can drive them into the ground. A Toyota, I can drive in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and drive back into the city, no problem. Yeah. So why do I trust Toyota? Well, it's just it's just like try and true, it's proven. So if you're gonna go study with on one of these online courses, make sure that cat actually is playing and doing the stuff you want to do. He or she can know all they want about trumpet, but if they're not actually a working player, what in the heck are they gonna teach you about playing in an orchestra? I mean, I not only just online courses, not now I'm gonna get upset. It's the same thing with people, I don't want to knock them, but I I will go after like the people that go straight eight years of school to get a DMA. Like they want to teach college. Okay, great. I, as a bachelor's in jazz studies, have infinitely more major orchestral experience than most people that went eight years of school through a DMA that are now gonna teach a kid how to play pictures at an exhibition. You've never even done that yourself. Yeah. I've worked with Michael Tilson Thomas and I've played with all kinds of major orchestras for orchestral like masterworks programs.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:16

And these cats are gonna go straight through school, get a DMA, and and how on earth are they gonna possibly teach you how to do all these things they've never done, other than their teacher taught them how to do it too. But they've never been in the hot seat with the beads of sweat coming down their face, their mouths dry, going, How am I gonna play this now? You know, yeah. And so whether it's online courses, whether it's in person, whether it's whatever, make sure the person you're studying with actually has some street credibility as a player. You know, I've die, I'll die on that hill. I get that people want to be teachers, and I respect that. But I do think, you know, because it's not necessarily true that the best teachers are the best players, the best players are the best teachers, whatever, but I I do think unanimously across the board, if you want to be a really serious good teacher, you have to have some playing credibility. You know, it's one thing to teach somebody how to play the trumpet, like pedagogically. Like there's been some great pedagogues that maybe you know weren't playing all the gigs or whatever, but right yeah, if like you're gonna start an online course on how to play high range and big band playing, and I see you and I'm like, dude, you don't get called for anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:20

I'm like, then I start going, like, how much are you charging for lessons? Man, I need to raise my rate. Yeah, right. You know, you just gotta Yeah, you gotta know that whatever, again, thinking as a consumer, you just have to know that whatever you're buying into, like, it's tried and true. You know, buy the course from the guy who's like one of the top calls in New York City. Don't buy the course from the guy that just got here and needs to make money and so now came up with a fancy course and ripped everything from Donald Reinhardt and called it his own thing. You know, it's just total, it just makes me mad. Really upset.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

I can't I I can tell. But but but rightfully so, you know, like yeah, I I understand like everything you're saying. And that's yeah, on a going on a small side tangent here, it's like that's why I'm I'm interviewing guys like you and uh Michael Sachs and all these people who like are doing the things that that I'm writing about. What's my experience? And that's partly why I'm writing the book is because I wish I had access to all of this stuff when I was younger, you know. But the credibility, the street credibility is coming from people such as yourselves who are like, yeah, they're doing it, and then and then it gives me the research credibility of like, oh yeah, like no, this is this is a legit thing. Right, well one or two more things. So I think uh you know, part of the expectation for young players is I'm gonna go to school and I'm gonna go out and play, and it's gonna be great. And it it will be also, right? There's I mean another also we can talk about is kind of the the business side of music and like how you know how I guess your thoughts kind of in that regard, kind of with besides the playing, like what the other skills do you need to have in order to be successful as like a freelancer, as a trumpet player, and I know we're gonna be here for another little while, but I have terrible trumpet ADD, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:06

I just go on and on and on. Um that's a really open-ended question that uh kind of similar to parenting, like you just kind of learn as you go. I I would say generally though, there are a lot of things you can do as a player to help ensure success that have nothing to do with actually playing. That somebody like me, who's now like fairly established, covering all the the big jobs, looking at other players moving to the town, thinking or who you know, someone asked me, like, hey Josh, we need a sub for Smithsonian this week, who do you want to call? These are the kinds of things I'm gonna be thinking about. Who's gonna show up on time? And on time means like who's gonna show up, maybe like, like I'm always one of the earliest people, like within like if I'm not there like maybe an hour, 45 minutes before the gig, people are like, Man, where's Josh? Because the last thing you want to do is make whoever hired you nervous. So on time does not mean on time, right? So like if if your show starts at 7:30, you better be like in the theater by I'd say the latest seven o'clock. Because the last thing you want to do is have the contractor being like, Man, help Josh gets here in time. Yeah. If they think that about you, even if you're on time, you don't miss anything, if they're thinking about that about you, they're going home nervous. Like, man, yeah, he cuts it close to the downbeat sometimes, you know. Yeah. That sometimes can cost you a gig. Has nothing to do with playing, being early, being dressed appropriately. So obviously, like, you know, if you're in an orchestra, they might want tails. If you're in a pit, they might want all black, whatever. But like sometimes even going to a rehearsal, and I'm not here to be like the pull fashion police, you probably don't want to show up in like sweats and a t-shirt. Yeah. You know, at least just look I'm wearing jeans and a sweater. It's that's cool, whatever. I'm not talking about like a dress code, but like some sometimes people will come in like basketball shorts. I'm like, what do you what are you doing, man? Like you know, John Clayton's right here conducting and you're you're showing up with basketball shorts at a at a big tap. You look ridiculous. Okay, you know, you look you look like you're going to like play video games with your with your friends or something, you know. So like just being dressed, like just being professional. You know, I I always think that just being a good people person, having a good attitude, having good manners. Um, like I'm always just trying to be aware of like how I address people, especially having come into the scene, being fairly young, being in situations that most people my age wouldn't have been in, like trying to be very careful about not getting too comfortable with the other players, even though they're your colleagues. It's like, man, these are still my elders. Yeah, let them grant you the access to be their friend or call them by their first name or whatever, you know. And so, like at first, I remember trying to be like super formal with people, and they'd be like, Man, I'm don't just call me Fred. I'm not Mr. Erby. Okay, he gave me permission. Because I have come across some older players where like they don't want you calling them by their first name, or they don't want you to address them or crack jokes. Like people were just it's just very personal, it's very sensitive, whatever. And so I just think always having like really good per people skills, having just like a really warm, a nice attitude, like for me, I sometimes go too far the other direction. Like, I'm always the class clown. Always. You know, me and and one of the guys at the Kennedy Center, who's been there forever, like literally decades. We crack jokes almost to the point where like the conductor be like, you know, and they just kind of walk away. And we know what they meant, like, okay, well we'll chill out. Sorry. But that's like kind of always my claim to fame. Like, I'm always gonna be the one to try to break the ice, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:27

Somebody would be like, Coffin, did you bring your ice pick? Like, I got some good ones today, just wait, you know. So, like you know, yeah, it's hard. You know, you you you you you're you you're stuck in traffic and you're stressed out and you want to be mad as heck, can't find parking. It oh, I get especially me, I get so frustrated. I hate Washington, DC so much. It's where I live. Uh and but I just gotta go to the gig and I I usually make some sort of really dark, I have dark humor, I'll make some joke dark joke about the traffic, whatever. You know, just try to make the cats laugh and you know, you know, just being a personable guy, something small that doesn't maybe seem like a lot, but I have found will upset older players is like not having a pencil. Don't ask me for my pencil. That's not me saying I'm happy to give you my pencil, but I've just met some older guys, but like I don't have a pencil, like crap, and I have to ask them for a pencil, and you can tell like they're not cool with that because in their mind you're unprepared.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:21

Uh so like always making sure you have a pencil or something to mark the music, making sure you just have all the gear you need. Sometimes it's frustrating, but sometimes that can mean bringing a lot more than what you realize. Like, you know, again, having my mute zum, if I'm going into a situation where I don't know the music, I have like a duffel bag where I'll bring mutes because you never know. Like that happened to Rick Baptist. So when Rick recorded the movie Up, the famous solos were scored for straight mute. He didn't need a solo tone. But like Michael Giacchino couldn't, it's like, man, we just like they wanted a certain old timey sound. And Rick's like, What let's do this again? I I have an idea, I've got something here. And he Tried the solo tone, and obviously that's how we know it to this day. And that's purely because he brought his stuff with him. You know, like Malcolm McNabb would bring like twelve horns to every session. Of course, he played E flat trumpet on everything, but sometimes you never know what you need. And so, like, for me, even like seeing another player in a section next to me, like they'll put their mutes out and then they might see what I have, and they're like, Oh, and they'll make an adjustment, maybe change something to better match me. I take major note of that rather than the guy who's like, ah crap, I didn't bring a bucket. We know I usually never use bucket, you know. Yeah. Even if they have something, I'm like, come on, man, really? Yeah, yeah. You know, and so, anyways, like all of these things, they have nothing to do with your ability. That's the good news. You can control all of this stuff. Again, being early, being dressed appropriately, just making sure you have all the stuff you need to do the playing. The playing should hopefully be the easy part for me. The driving in, the traffic, the figuring out when I need to be there, park finding parking. Like, that's the hard stuff for me. Once I get there, I'm like, okay, cool. Now I can just play. You know. But some players might, some younger players, they might might not anticipate that stuff, uh, maybe because they just don't know. And that's why somebody like you who's coming up with this awesome resource, now they can have some idea of knowing, which is I think it's great because not everyone talks about these kinds of things. But all the all the all the stuff you would want to do in any professional environment, you could work in a cubicle in an office, you're probably gonna want to be on time. You want to be able to work out differ difficult situations with your colleagues. You want to be a problem solver, you want to have a good attitude, yeah. You want to have all the stuff you need, the tools, you know. Um, I think all of those things I have found in in again, learning firsthand, uh moving here at like 21, 22 years old, and within a couple years I had all the gigs that people had waited for. I didn't purposely try to seek that out. Um but I find that again, like what I said about the mutes and like the listening of their players, I think the excellence and the securing of your work is all in the very small details. And so just always thinking about that kind of stuff. And and you know, maybe some people might think of it as being a teacher's pet or whatever, but okay, whatever. I'm working, you're not. You know, like something I do. A couple of my friends run bands. Like I said, I I don't really band lead, I have no desire to. But some of my friends who I've worked with for years, maybe there's a new cat on the band, and they don't know that like me and this band leader are really tight. I might just pack up all the stands for him or collect all the books and and put them in the box for him.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:22

I'm just trying to help him out. He hired me, he gave me work. That's the least I can do because he's the one that's gotta schlep all the crap around. I think people notice that. You know, none of this has to do with music, just be a good person, don't be an a-hole. There's somebody in the army blues that would tell me that like if you just want to have a successful career in the army, don't be an a-hole. And don't be stupid. Yeah. If you do those two things, you're gonna have a huge amount of success. So those are those are kind of like the business things. I I guess like one other thing that I have I have experienced personally that I'll share with you, part of that people business thing that I didn't realize that I learned uh very firsthand. So, like in in in the industry, in a lot of scenarios, a lot of the bigger gigs and union jobs, especially, you get hired by a contractor. Most times the contractor's not on the gig that they're not playing. That's their job is contracting people. So and so will say, hey, we're doing this TV broadcast, ball ball, we need a 60-piece orchestra. And they called Gina Semiti, who's like a really well-known LA contractor. Or Jay Crowder here in DC or Craig. Craig's a big contractor. You know, let's say I he hired me to play, I don't know, second or third. Maybe it's like a super legit thing. And if you hired me to be first, I'd be like, Did everyone die? You know, even I know I shouldn't be playing first trumpet. Like, if Chris Gecker lives in Washington, D.C., you better have called him first.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:36

So let's say I'm playing third, and uh, you know, John Williams comes to the Kennedy Center. Yeah, and John, I got offered a week of work with John Williams, and this did happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:47

This is so cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:48

Like, if it's I can call Craig and beck, Craig, man, I know I said yes to the gig. I got offered this other thing. It's it's financially a lot more and it's and it's a longer period of work. But because I have this one conflict with yours, I'd have to say no to the whole thing. It's like an all or nothing deal. He's the type of contractor where like he will be very understanding of that. Like if he can work it out. And in most cases, if I choose to do that, I will already have said, listen, I already secured a sub if you want to use them. Obviously, it's your call who you want to hire, but I know you like using this player, so I arrange for this player to be ready for this gig if I if I bail. He would be fine with that. Another contractor might never forgive you for that and might never call you ever again. Which personally I think is ridiculous. Um, because I like I I do a little bit of contracting. I would never fault anybody for making more money. Again, being a family person, understanding what we're all trying to do, make a living. Like, the only thing I ask is that like, don't tell me the day of. Like, if you're gonna go do something else, just let me know so then I can figure it out. I'm not I I honestly I will not hold that against anybody. But like contractor A might have that attitude, contractor B might set your name on fire and put you on a blacklist. How do you know the difference? Good luck. Yeah, but the only the only thing I can tell is like after I've kind of developed a relationship with the contractors, or you try, like I'll try to push that envelope. Like there was one contractor who who like you cannot sub out for. But for whatever reason, he treated me like I walked on water, and I had to play first trumpet on any possible gig he gets asked to contract. And it got to the point uh where like there was one long Broadway show over like Christmas, and I'm like, man, I've got a lot of work at Christmas time. Like, I I don't want to just be sitting in the pit for five weeks and missing out on all these other things that I work for these people very regularly, you know. And we worked it out. He's like, okay, well, who can you get? Well, guess who I called? Craig. And so Craig covered all the shows that I couldn't do so I could go do these other things. And he was cool with that. Had I done that with him when I first started working with him, he probably would have been the type to burn me. I don't I don't know for sure, but I I think he's a very serious guy, and I don't blame him for it. He's got a lot of responsibility with the types of gigs he gets asked to put together. But after you've developed a rapport with somebody and you've proven yourself, that starts to give you more leeway. Just in the same way, uh, if you're showing up to bias studios for the very first time and you're late, sorry, man, like that's it. Yeah, you're probably done for. Now, if if if you and I have been playing together a bias for a couple years, and we know Gloria, the secretary there, and Bob's the main engineer, and we've been playing there for years, and you're late to a session for whatever reason. Family thing, kids sick, wife's car broke down, whatever, nobody's gonna blink an eye. Why? You have proven yourself. Yeah. Is that kind of jacked up? Maybe? I mean, I like you know, if a new guy, let's say, is just freaking out, has no experience, and didn't realize traffic, whatever, and he's late, like, man, maybe we should cut him a little slack. I don't I don't know. But that's the problem, that's the risk we take as new players, is we just don't know. So, very early on in your career, at least I found, um, man, I just try I tried anything I possibly could to avoid any mistake. Like, sometimes I'd leave two hours before a gig just because I was so terrified of being late. And now that I've kind of proven myself, people know my work ethic, they know the deal. I've got two kids at home now. Last night, it's like less than an hour before the Smithsonian rehearsal starts. I'm like, I gotta get out of here. And I have like 20-something miles to drive, and I and and but I come, I come running in. We didn't start yet, I wasn't late, but I I cut it maybe a little bit closer. But because that's not my MO and I've worked here now for almost 10 years, like nobody even notices that that I did that. But if you're the new guy, people are gonna be going, like, man, where's that cat at? We got we'd start in 10 minutes. Where's he at?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:46

You know, but people people will say, Oh, Josh will be here, don't worry, he will be here. Something must something must be happening if he's not, you know. And so, again, all of that just to say, like, as you're starting out, as you're breaking into whatever work you want, whatever wherever you're getting into, it almost requires a certain level of like overcompensating. You have to buffer any probability of error. And and then as you've paid your dues, you've proven yourself, you've kind of started to secure your work. Not that you you start being lazy. I find you can kind of relax a little bit. People know me, yeah, they know my like it's cool. So then if if if I call the Kennedy Center, I'm like, man, I don't know what happened. There's an accident on 395, like it wasn't there when I left. Like, it just happened, I'm stuck. I might not make the show. I'm not gonna lose my gig. I'm not. I know I'm not. If that was my first time playing, probably not gonna get another chance. And that's kind of what sucks about music, is most people won't give you a second chance until you've already proven yourself time and time and time and time and time again. Yeah, but that's just kind of how it works, you know. But like I said, with all of that stuff, uh, which hopefully encompasses your question as as completely as possible. Pretty much all of that stuff has I, you know, I haven't said anything about playing really.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:01

That that and I think that's to us, at least that should be like the most like comforting thing. Anybody can do that stuff. It has nothing to do with talent, playing, skill level, whatever. That all happens before we sit down and play the downbeat. So I I would just yeah, yeah. That's those are the things I think about.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:16

Yeah, for sure. And it's like those are the kind of things that I think are like, at least in my college experience, were like kind of glossed over. But I don't think anybody really like sat down with me and like, okay, today's trumpet lesson is nothing to do with the trumpet. Like, right? Like, I kind of wish I had some of those moments of like, here's like what what it's like. Like, you want to do this, like, here's these other this other side of of the business that's not even trumpet related. Yeah. Like, oh, okay. And like all those things will help you. Like, there's that gig I mentioned earlier where I was doing like a little Broadway theme for four days at like at one of the high schools and stuff. The director found my name years ago. Uh, called like the university and was like, hey, do you got some trumpet players to come play? And been doing stuff for him for a long time, and then he was a music director for a brand new theater that opened and uh called me for the trumpet stuff, which was great. And then this last thing, I I was we were looking at our my schedule and I was like, I'm gonna be kinda I was like, I don't know if I can make this happen. Like, I'm I got this and this and this and this. Like, I would not be at any of the sound checks, I would m maybe make downbeat. And he's like, I just I want you. I want you like we'll make it work. And I'm like, Yeah, okay. And there was that one of the first nights I'm like hustling, and I'd been an like an hour and a half, I was an hour and a half away running a rehearsal, and I'm like, go in as quick as I can, and like traffic's hitting, and it's like it's like a show starts at 7.30, and it's like arrival time, 747. And I'm like, I'm I'm coming, I promise, but you're like you're you might have to have the the second trumpet play lead. You know, he's capable and he can play until I get there. But I was like, this is where it's looking, and then it would change, it's like 729. I'm like, great, I'll have one minute to get in. 750, and I'm like, I I don't know, man. I'm gonna I'll be there when I get there. And like, and I like and I finally park, and it was like 729, you know, like 729, and I'm like running in, and I'm like running onto the stage as the director's about to like go on, and I just I sit down, throw my case down, pull out my horn, no warm-up, no tuning, and it was like go. And bam, yep, bam, and we made it through, it was good, but I was like, man, that was a little too close for comfort. I'm sorry, I was like, I but I I I told him beforehand, I was like, it might be that, and it it was.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:51

I mean, if that's yeah, if that's the risk they want to take, you know, then you just say if that's clearly communicated, that's on them, you know. Maybe two gigs will pop up close and I'll tell somebody like, man, listen, I'll I'll be there for downbeat, but I'm probably not gonna be at the rehearsal or sound check. Like I said a bit ago, like if you're honest with these people and they want you, they might take that deal.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:09

Yeah. And it's yeah, as and I think, you know, as obviously this isn't the case for us, but as long as you're not milking the situation or taking advantage of of stuff, that's like, yeah, you'll be okay. If you're like, I'm just gonna say I can't make it till down because I wanna play video games with my buddies or yeah, some dumb stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:27

Or if you're late every time, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:29

Yeah, it's like okay, but yeah. Okay, and then I mean, of course, your main gig, the army band, you know, getting that gig and uh and we kind of touched on it a little bit about like you know being close to family and the influence of previous players and teachers, of like, yeah, this is a good thing. Was that ever in your mind to begin with? And then what was like kind of like the yeah, I'm gonna go with this, and also how it's been for you as a player in your career and family life and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:00

Sure. I definitely never thought I was gonna be in a military band. It like was not in the cards. Like I said, I always wanted to be in like a studio musician. Going through school, again, having met my girlfriend who's now my wife, and a mother of my two children, you know, graduation was coming. It's like, okay, what the heck do I do now? I thought about moving back to Pittsburgh. I'm like, man, if I could become the guy there, I would just be the guy. I just do absolutely everything in the city because there's not a whole lot. There's some really good work there, but again, like I said earlier, just the list is shorter. So if you can become the top of the list, then you're the big fish in the little pond. And that's a nice situation sometimes to be in. Yeah, rather than constantly competing with all these other stuff that people move to these couple cities to, you know. And like I said, Paul was just really pushing me for the military gig. But like this was probably my first like major test of like what I said, like the work-life balance. Claire was not moving to like one of those huge cities. It just wasn't gonna happen. She didn't want to be that far from family. And I didn't want to break up with her. You know, we were really serious. Uh and and so we looked at the military gig and I I like presented it to her, and she was cool with it. You know, we're not that far from home. We can leave in the morning and be home by lunch time at our like our parents' house. I don't move, you know, the premiere bands are like permanently stationed in DC. There's not really any work limitations outside of duty, like so. I can play all the gigs I want to play as long as the army isn't asking me to do something else. Or if they are, I can request leave, and if they give it to me, I'll still still go do something else. You know, it's just it's just such a case-by-case scenario. But the gig was really appealing to her. Again, proximity to home, and I thought, well, I could do what I want. And at that point, too, like I I had such a huge admiration for Brian, Kevin Burns, Mark Wood, Ken McGee, like all these players in DC that it just started to started to grow on me. I'm like, man, I could play like we we play in a big band more than anybody in LA or New York. We have more big band experience than anybody. I'm going there every day to play, you know, with some of the greatest players in the world who came from those places to come take these jobs. And and so it like really grew on me, like, man, I'd be part of this, like one of the greatest big bands on earth. You know, Lisa Whitaker was a former lead player in the Army Blues, and and Mark, like I said, Mark Wood and Dave Stahl was in the Army Blues back in the day. And Dave's like one of my big lead trumpet heroes. Dave was like the first lead trumpet player for the Army Blues. That's the chair I'm sitting in today, is his spot, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:20

And so like it just that started to grow on me. Like, man, that's that's kind of cool, you know. So I took the audition and I and I won. And then it then, because I think what also started to set in is like, man, when I graduate, like, what money am I making? You know, you can move to a big city, but you need money to move to a big city.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:38

And then when you get there, you need to keep making money. It's like, man, maybe I'll move to Pittsburgh, save some money, maybe you know, all these things. I'm like, okay, I could be 21 years old and making like$70,$80,000.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:48

And then now it's even you could very quickly get into six figures in the premiere bands as long as you stay.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:53

And so That's pretty solid.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:56

Yeah, I just like, well, that's what I want to do. So I took uh yeah, I got my first appointment was as a jazz trumpet player with the Army Blues, and then a couple years it was clear that the lead trumpet players were retiring, and so I did like an audition trial to play lead. And then the the commander in the band moved me over to be the the lead trumpet player for the band, and that's that's what I'm doing now. In July, it'll be nine years that I've I've played in the US Army Blues. And I've also gotten to do I've recorded and played lead trumpet for the Ermino Note on like three of their records now. Brian and I often like the cool thing about the service band is I'll do these like sister service banning requests, so like odds are we don't have like another world-class lead player in the building just walking around waiting for like me or Richie to just be gone. And so a lot of times, like we'll call like Brian McDonald, like, hey, can you come play with us? Or like a buddy of mine who I went to North Texas with, Andrew Beesick sub for me at the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Lorenzo Trujillo. We do have him, but we have to borrow him with concert band. But if they let him go, we can use him. So a lot of times we'll share each other. I'll go to the Ermine and Oat a lot because Brian has uh a lot of other responsibilities and things like that. You get to play with all the bands, and and then we all, of course, co-mingle on the civilian side of things, and so it's just a very rewarding career. It's music, music, music, music, music all the time. That's our main job, that's the primary focus of our organization. We get to go to all kinds of cool places, and uh then again, like I said, just a very practical thing. Like you can make a lot of good money and you get all kinds of crazy benefits that people don't talk about, like a VA loan, you know, your your health insurance and dental care and stuff for your family. My wife and I had both of our kids, and we just walked out of the hospital and never saw a bill in our life. You go to the pharmacy, you pick up your meds, and you go home. I mean, that stuff adds up. That again, if you're 18, 19, you might not be thinking about that kind of stuff. And then, you know, I could, in theory, at 41 years old, I'll I'll retire with a pension for the rest of my life to the day I die.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:54

Be forty-one. I will probably, to me, still think I'm at kind of like maybe like working towards the pinnacle of my career. This this day and age, that's kind of young still, you know. Yeah, I mean, people in LA and that are 41 are still waiting to get the top calls, you know. And so I'll be retired and then I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, just keep playing, but now the army's gonna pay me to live for the rest of my life. And there's nowhere else, I don't know, on earth. Like I said, like as far as like comparing classical players and orchestra jobs, and then like commercial players, jazz players, whatever. This is the place to do it, you know. We have four premier military big bands, and there's actually a spot open right now in one of our sister service bands. The army has technically we have four premier big bands, uh, four premier bands. There's two premier big bands. Uh, there's the U.S. Army Blues, and then for the field band that does most of the touring, uh, there's the U.S. Army Jazz Ambassadors. They have an opening right now. Uh probably one of my closest friends on earth is uh one of the lead players for them, Nick Osick, that's a fantastic band. That job's open right now. So you can be Joe Schmoe coming out of college with no experience and nobody knows who you are, but if you can play your hind end off and win that gig, boom, overnight, you're like so secure.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:07

Tens of thousands of dollars, you have health insurance, you have a VA loan, so you can buy a house without any down payment, which only people in the military can do. I mean, you can think of anything. You can go to the commissary, there's no taxes at the commissary, and it's it's like wickedly cheaper to buy groceries there. Like only we can go to the commissary. You know, you you can go to a restaurant, ask for a military discount, whatever. Like all these little things just add up to be like a pretty substantial benefit. You know, one of my favorite things, honestly, is being able to board a plane first. They say we'd like to thank our equity service members, blah, blah, blah. You could, man, I know I'm getting my trumpet on the plane, because how many of us stress out? Like, man, I hope there's room for my trumpet case, you know, but you don't want to pay all the extra money to be in group A or group one or whatever to get the case on. Like, I just walk right up on there, show my military ID, put my case up there, you know. That honestly is one of my favorite benefits. Uh I just I I hate flying. I hate flying with my trumpet. Somebody's gonna get make me want to gate check it, whatever, and it's in a guard bag, so it's gonna get flattened by the you know people loading the cargo underneath.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:06

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:07

Um, so yeah, there's there's I would call the job like wine. Like it just it just gets sweeter the longer I've been here. That's not to say that there aren't downsides. There are totally cons to being in this job, but you can say that about any job anywhere on earth that's gonna offer you money. As long as the pros outweigh the cons, I'm not gonna leave this job. And at this point, I'm halfway to my retirement. I'm staying in. I'm not I'm not gonna get out. You don't have like you know, benefits I can provide for my children. Like I didn't use my GI bill because I went to college before joining the military. My kids are gonna go to college for free. It's crazy. Who could say that? That's a huge investment. My I think my parents are like still paying some of my student loans off because I had I had some, both my sister and I had some, but like my mom, like one of her as a parent, like one of her goals and hills she wanted to die on was she didn't care how hard it took, she was putting her kids through school. Like that was her thing. I'm putting my children through four years of school, after that, you're on your own.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:03

And so the fact that I don't have to do that for my kids, knowing how hard my mom and dad work, and now I definitely being in a situation where I am, I definitely help them. You know, that's our job now. It's like I try to take care of my parents. Um but not being able to have to worry about that now. When I was a senior at North Texas with a getting a jazz trumpet degree, I wasn't w thinking about how I'm gonna pay for my kids' college. Now I'm definitely something I'm thinking about. And so if I didn't have the military, but god man is so expensive. Like daycare I do pay for it. It's like, man, it's ridiculous. Yeah. All he needs are some goldfish and a nap. Like, what? Come on, man. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, the gig just keeps giving and keeps giving and keeps giving. You know, I'm about to leave for rehearsal here in like fifteen, twenty minutes. You know, I'll go to rehearsal, play with the big band, come home, hang out with my kids. You know? And we have, you know, uh we're playing with uh Jim Pugh. We're gonna be recording a like a jazz orchestra thing with Jim Pugh, and then we're gonna do a big band concert with Nick Finzer here pretty soon for the uh Uh the American Trumbone Workshop, the Blues will play uh we'll be playing at that. And so we can do like a jazz orchestra recording with Jim and then the big band will play with Nick. Yeah, you just get to do all kinds of cool things. And even like again, having the job, one of the other benefits of the job is like there are gigs that I normally wouldn't want to do that I'll still do. Like, so for instance, I hate playing weddings. I just don't. It's not fun. Yeah, I don't get a whole lot of enjoyment out of it. Sometimes I'll get calls and I'll be like, yeah, I'll take that gig because you show up and it's me playing trumpet, it's Ben Patterson, the lead player uh who's the lead trombonist for the Airman of Note, and then like the Saks player is like Clay Pritchett from the Army Blues. You're like, this is the baddest horn section I've ever had. This bride and groom have no idea how good their horns are. And so now all of a sudden, playing September for the thousandth time of my life is actually a lot of fun because the players are so good. Okay. So you show up to these civilian gigs, and you know, all of us have day gigs too, so we're not like competing to like the scene here is like so relaxed and friendly because nobody's having to work to put food on the table. We we have our jobs in uniform. Yeah, and so everything is so relaxed and laid back, and you you show up to like this little pickup big band gig, and they'll be like, Yeah, we can give you like 50 bucks and two beers and a dinner for this one restaurant, uh, this place called Mr. Henry's. And I'm like, I'm in. Yeah, it's just an opportunity. Like, everyone has to have those kind of gates where you can just relax and you do it because it's fun. Yeah, right? Because we do get in the habit of working a lot, and so I'm like, Yeah, I'll do it. And I show up and it's like Luke Brandon from the Airman and Oat, and me and maybe Tyler from uh the Navy Commodores, who's now arranging for the Jazz Ambassadors, and then like Kevin Burns.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:39

Damn, it's this Travis section is way too good to be work at this place right now, you know. Yeah, yeah. But it's just that fun. And so that I I do think that for me, that's like one of the favorite parts of this gig. It's like uh there are some civilians, of course, and they're great. There's some really, really good players. Like Craig is man, I love Craig so much. I love working with him, working for him, with him. But but by and large, it's mostly nine times out of ten a military musician you're working with, either somebody who's still in or somebody that retired and just stuck around town, you know. And so you'll find yourself on these gigs that maybe in another city you might not want to do, or you're like, I don't know if I want a high school, they're calling me to play. Like some there's like some private high schools here who have like a lot of money, you know, pay you like pretty good. You're like, yeah, okay, I'll I'll go do it. You know, and then you show up and it's like, oh military catch. Like, this is a really good orchestra. What the heck? You know, and so that that that that's a lot of fun too. And so yeah, you know, the gigs here I I think are great. Um, you know, if you don't want to do like a military gig, my recommendation, I know I'm in the army, but the Navy and the Air Force, I think, have the best regional band programs. They're just they're just smaller. The army has so many bands. And so I find just generally the level across the board for Navy and Air Force is just it's just like um you're never gonna find yourself in a musical situation where like, yeah, I don't, you know, they're all stellar players there, uh, because they're still pretty discerning. Not that the army necessarily isn't, but yeah, with the army being so big, there is a certain level of they need they need warm bodies to fill the holes, you know. And so at some point they do just kind of, you know, you might find yourself, God knows wherever, and it's just like they needed people, they need people, you know. Yeah. And so some grunts like, Well, I used to play trumpet in high school. I can I can, you know, I can take a whack at it, and all of a sudden now they're in the band, you're like, oh my gosh, what are you doing here? So yeah, you know, the regional bands for the Navy and Air Force I find are like extremely good. I have a lot of friends in the in those groups. And there are some also throughout the army that are still pretty um pretty good. But the premier band gigs, for me, it's just man, yeah, it's just like wine, just gets sweeter every year that I'm here. I I have no regrets at all. To the point where people that I admire in the other places I wanted to work, they're like, Man, you have the greatest job on earth. Don't ever leave. Like, do you understand how much they're like, Do you know what I pay? Like, Wayne, but you know what my health insurance costs? You know what yours costs? Nothing. You know why? Because my taxes are paying for it. So I'm paying for my health insurance and yours. Yeah. So yeah, I you know, hindsight's always 2020, but 18-year-old Josh would not have wanted this job. 31-year-old Josh is very, very grateful to have this job.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:19

Yeah, absolutely. That's like another reason. Like, I think I'd heard of the military bands when I was younger, but like in in another life, if I had had my book or like just understood like the military bands and words, like I probably would have been involved in one of those areas. So when one of my uh maybe to leave on the snow, but yeah, one of my trumpet students was like, I want to do trumpet. I'm like, okay, like, do you want to do the trumpet? He's like, I wanna do the trumpet. I'm like, okay, like boom, and we have uh a national guard band here. And then I was like, get into that right now. And he's graduated 18, 19, and he's in the guard band. He's starting his 20 years, you know, and he's gonna audition for whatever group, you know, uh in the future, you know, like whether it's army, navy, whatever, he's gonna get after the guard and start his like military run, he's gonna audition up and get into the military band stuff. And I'm like, dang, this yeah, this kid's gonna retire by 38. By 39. Like, if you know, if he keeps the 20 years, and I'm like, that's not fair. Like, that's like eight years away from me, and I'm like, I s I just started a brand new business last year. I got so much, so much to go. So it's like, okay, all this research and somebody like it helped somebody who's you know in in their career. So that's that's the hope behind the books.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:45

Yeah, I'm like I said, I think it's great that you're putting that resource together for people to have all of information or even all even all of the resources for all these different things just compiled in one place so they know where to go from the list of like and just again, the whole compilation of everything you're putting together. Um, there's nothing out there like that. And so I know I definitely will have one, a copy here in in my office for for students to have access to because yeah, I just think it's a really unique new thing that you're doing. I I think it's really it's gonna be a uh invaluable resource to players coming up looking for a way to survive on the trumpet. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but it's hard to make a living in music, and so you're helping them out hugely by showing them all kinds of different ways that they might not even have realized they could have made a living. Do you exactly you know? You're providing that to them, so you're saving them a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:39

That's the hope. And so it's like, yeah, wish I would have had that, but it's been yeah, it's a lot of fun. Well, thank you again, Josh. Yeah, just this has been fantastic. It went on twice as long as I thought it would, but so much fun talking. I'd really appreciate you taking the time to to be with us today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:57

Yeah, man, thanks for having me. I'm I'm sorry that I'm such a chatty Kathy.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:00

It's just no, this is good. I love it. You know, most of the podcasts are like about an hour, and the people will see this one's like, oh, two and a half hours. Oh, wow. This is what do they say? A lot of great stuff. Yeah, I know. So well, thank you again, and uh we'll catch you soon.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:17

All right, man. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:19

Once again, we'd like to thank Josh Kaufman for being with us uh on this interview. Learned so much. Uh yeah, it was twice as long as I thought it was gonna be, but again, covers so many great things and uh just a great guy, a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, and uh hopefully you enjoyed it. And if you did, please share this with somebody, another trumpet player that you know. We want to get the word out about the podcast, about the book, and continue to help inspire and support younger players in their pursuit and career of making the trumpet part of the how they make their living. So thank you again. And uh in two weeks, our next guest is Evan Taylor, the current trumpet player with uh the Dave Cause band. Uh, we're excited to learn more about him, his story, and hear all about what he has been up to and uh his side of the in music industry is in general. So we will see you then. Thank you so much. This has been the Modern Trumpeter Podcast, and we'll see you next time.