Episode #15, Michael Sachs

This week we hear from the Principal trumpet player of the Cleveland Orchestra, Michael Sachs.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Modern Trumpeter Podcast. Today we have a very special guest, a principal trumpet player from the Cleveland Orchestra, Michael Sachs. Praised by critics for exemplifying how brass playing can be at once heroic and lyrical, Cleveland Orchestra principal trumpeter Michael Sachs is recognized internationally as a leading soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, teacher, author, and clinician. He is the longest-serving principal trumpet in the Cleveland Hit Orchestra history, and recently received the International Trumpet Guild's highest honors, the ITG Honorary Award, given annually to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the art of trumpet playing. From 1988 until 2023, Michael Sachs has served as chair of the brass division and head of the trumpet department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has also taught at Northwestern University and Rice University. He has served on the faculty of leading summer festivals, including Aspen Music Festival, National Brass Symposium, National Orchestral Institute, Summer Brass Institute, and Summit Brass. And regularly presents master classes and workshops throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Originally from Santa Monica, California, Mr. Sachs attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history before continuing studies at the Juilliard School. His former teachers include Ziggy Elman, Mark Schuld, Anthony Plogue, and James Stamp. Prior to joining the Cleveland Orchestra, Michael Sachs was a member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Sachs joined the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in 2024. And of course, as a reminder, we are in the process of writing a book called The Modern Trumpeter: A Guide to Building a Versatile and Successful Career. This book will be available at the end of 2026 and features insights and stories from over fifty professional trumpet players of all musical backgrounds, including Wayne Bergeron, Bobby Shu, Bria Schomberg, Bajan Watson, Marcus Print Up, Kellen Hannes, Kiku Collins, Jerry Hay, Brian McDonald, Josh Kaufman, Michael Sachs, and many, many more. To receive updates on this book and other offerings, sign up for our email list at modern trumpeter.com. You can also follow us on Instagram and uh at YouTube at Modern Trumpeter. And if you enjoy the podcast, please share it with another trumpet player you know. And now here is my interview with Michael Sachs. Hey everybody, thank you for coming again to the Modern Trumpeter Podcast. Today we get to speak with uh trumpeter Michael Sachs. Michael, thank you so much for having us today.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

It's a pleasure, Jaden. Nice to see you.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yes, you as well. Can you first tell us a little bit about uh your background, kind of how you first got into the trumpet and at what moment moments or point in time you were like, yeah, I want to make this my life and my career.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Um, I'll try to give you the quick version here. Um basically I grew up in uh I was born and raised in Santa Monica, California. And my parents were not musicians. My dad ran an ad agency and my mom worked in the ad agency with him. Music in the schools in Santa Monica was very, very strong. Santa Monica wasn't part of the LA school district, it's his own school district. And it was basically you had a number of elementary schools feeding, you know, a couple of junior high schools feeding one high school.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

And the music was very strong. I mean, pretty much anybody who wanted to play an instrument when you got into fifth grade, you could choose anything from strings, winds, brass, percussion. And, you know, they kind of funneled you to various teachers for various lessons and access to instruments. So where I came in, I had a sister who's a year older, and when she was in kindergarten, when I was four years old, we went to her open house in like October in the fall of her kindergarten year. And I was in pre-K, as four years old. And um the elementary band played, and a kid got up and played uh, you know, the two Never on Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

From Zorba the Greek, and um and I thought it was the greatest thing I ever heard. This trumpet soloist playing this this tune, and I wanted to play trumpet. So my mom took me to the local music store and they took one look at me and they said, Okay, well, there's only one problem. I didn't have any front teeth. So they're like, bring him back when he gets his front teeth, you know, he gets his front teeth in. And so I had to wait a couple years, and then uh when I was six and a half, I was in first grade, and um, you know, I I still, you know, I really wanted to play trumpet. So my parents took me down, same music store, and I started taking lessons with a man by the name of Ziggy Elman, who, if you look him up, was a very famous big band player. Goodman and Dorsey Brothers and everyone in between had his own band, had a couple big hits. One was called In the Angels Sing, I think it was 19 like 39, 40, 41, somewhere in there. Anyhow, so Mr. Elman was the one who started me off. And then throughout elementary school, junior high high school, I just played in all the groups. And uh, by the time I got to high school, I was playing the marching band, the wind ensemble, the jazz band, the orchestra, which was like an 80-piece orchestra playing.

unknown 5:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Uh Hinemus Symphonic Metamorphosis, Tchaikovsky symphonies. I mean, I mean, big, you know, standard repertoire.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

And um, which is unique for cigarette. And then I was also playing, you know, I I'd grown up on you know horn band stuff with you know, Chicago, Earth, Wind and Fire, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and that kind of stuff. And so I was playing in in a couple of horn bands, playing, you know, cover bands, playing all that stuff coming up as well. So I was doing a very, you know, a huge variety of things. Yeah, that's pretty much everything. Yeah. Then when it came time to figuring out whether to go to college or not, my teacher at the time really wanted me to go to Eastman where he had gone. And my parents didn't necessarily want me to go. My father in particular wanted me to go more of a business route and circle around and take over his business. So the net of it is that I decided I kind of split the difference and I decided to go to UCLA and get a broader degree. I ended getting a a history degree, not a music degree. Interesting. So I studied history, mostly uh Civil War to World War II, some Cold War history, also some immigration history, and then kind of a minor and more Japanese history. Wow. And then, but at the same time, I was playing, she played in the marching band for a year at UCLA. I played in the wind ensemble. Um, I was studying with Tony Plug starting through about halfway through my senior year in high school, all the way through my undergrad. And Tony was a huge reason why I had any success that I've had uh ever since I started studying with him when I was 17. Um so I was doing all the playing. I was playing in a couple groups, a couple youth orchestras. One, uh the Young Musicians Foundation debut orchestra and um American Youth Symphony were the two big orchestras that were going on in Los Angeles for like undergrads, grad students, people just out of college. I mean, there wasn't a New World Symphony down in Miami at the time. You know, those kind of functions, those kind of groups, like kind of uh the best young musicians who had didn't have a job yet, were playing in those groups. And one group, the debut orchestra was playing kind of more classical repertoire, and the American Youth Symphony was playing, you know, bigger, you know, Mahler symphonies and the Big Strauss and Shostakovich and that kind of stuff. Okay. Both those groups throughout pretty much my whole under undergraduate years, plus taking lessons with Tony Ploke. I was doing all the playing of any music, you know, student. I just wasn't taking any of the classes. Sure. Yeah. So then when it came time, you know, toward the end of my undergrad, I had started doing some stuff in the summers. Like one summer I I ended up subbing in Music Academy of the West for a couple weeks. I was teaching there, and something happened to one of the trumpet players, so I ended up going up there for a couple weeks. Then the next summer after my sophomore year, I went and did the Empire Brass Quintet Symposium for four weeks. I was around the Tanglewood guys and around Sam Palafian and all, you know, that group then. Yeah. Then the following summer is really when it was kind of a light bulb moment for me, was when I was at Aspen, studying with Lou Ranger and around Ray Mace and Chris Gecker and wonderful players, uh, students as well. That that's really when I decided, okay, I feel like I'm having a lot of success with this, is really what I love. I feel like I'm I'm good enough I can give this a shot. I really want to give this a shot. That's when it really turned into a different thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

And then in the meantime, through Sam Palafian from my time at the Empire Brass Contet Symposium, I started going to New York on business with my parents, and I started to get to know Mark Gould, who Sam had introduced me to. Yeah. And then that was really the motivation for me wanting to go to New York to go to Juilliard, was to study with Mark Gould.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

At the end of my undergrad, I was lucky enough to get accepted to Juilliard. And that's where I went basically to start all over again as a 21-year-old freshman. Yeah. It was just kind of kooky, but yeah, I've done all the playing, but not the classes. So I'm in New York, I'm studying with Gould, and I'm there, and then basically the beginning of my junior year there, I won my job in the Houston Symphony. Wow. Which was fourth utility. And then I stayed the rest of the year in kind of a like an artist degree program or like an artist diploma program where I was just playing in the orchestra, doing brass quintet, chamber music, studying with Gould. I wasn't taking any classes. So I don't have a music degree of any kind. Kind of, you know, my my degree is more of a you know, experienced playing degree. Sure, yeah. One other person I I I didn't mention yet is James Stamp. And about halfway through my junior year at ECLA studying with Tony, Tony started doing a much more focus on his composition and less on his teaching. So what he did is he only taught me and Pat Kunky, a wonderful trumpet player, um, is a dear friend who plays in Nashville all these years. So Tony would see me and Pat maybe once a month. And then he organized with Mr. Stamp for us to see Mr. Stamp the other weeks. Interesting. I started studying with Mr. Stamp about halfway through my junior through all through my senior for about that year and a half. And in many ways, that time with Mr. Stamp is kind of, I like to say it's a Genesis moment. Yeah, yeah. Kind of like it was before and then everything since. Tony, you know, Tony Plug was already taking me that direction, was very much a disciple and very, you know, very influenced by Mr. Stamp.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

He approached things. And you know, because Tony had studied with Tom Stevens and and and Malcolm McNabb and you know these different players, you know, like that who were very much disciples of Mr. Stamp. Yeah so I was already very well versed in it, but to go straight to the source to Mr. Stamp was illuminating. Oh, yeah. And that's really what's carried a lot. What I'm going to talk about is a lot of that carry forward from Mr. Stamp that over the last you know 40, you know, 40 odd years, 45 years, 43 years since then, um, has really carried me forward. That whole philosophy and that whole approach and how I've been able to apply it in a number of different manners. Not only the way Mr. Stamp had me apply it, but just taking those concepts and then applying them in general to a lot of other ways that I've kind of found worked in in you know increasingly evolving better ways for me.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, well, I can that's that would be yeah, incredible to study with the you're listening to all these people and like, oh that's I was very, very I was so fortunate to be around these guys.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

And and then I was in Houston for a couple years and then kind of fast forwarding, and then after a couple of years in Houston, I won my job here in Cleveland in May of 88 and started in September of 88, and that's where I've been ever since. Just still going strong. So far, I'm gonna knock on wouldn't be my grandmother in Brooklyn. So far, so good. Oh, but look, man, I've been really lucky. I mentioned, you know, Tony and Mark Gould and Mr. Stamp and Lou Ranger. And on top of that, you know, there were other people you know, going to hear Phil Smith all the time and being around him. And Phil became many ways a mentor and kind of an older brother to me.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Exactly 10 years older than me. And he started in New York at exactly the same age, 26 that I started here. And he was in Chicago for two years prior to that, his fourth utility.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:09

Similar trajectory that he was basically 10 years ahead of me.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Somebody that I always looked up to. Uh Javozan was another person that I got to know doing Tanglewood a summer there. And then over the years talking with him and using him as a very trusted soundboard under Gitala became that as well. Bernie Adelstein, my predecessor, became a very dear friend. Yeah. And I can't not mention David Zouter, who was the wonderful second trumpet player, first cornet player here in Cleveland, who we overlapped my first nine years and became as much a father to me as my own father. Wow. And somebody whose influence burns very, very brightly with me within me every moment I pick up a trumpet. I mean, all of these guys. You know, not to mention all the people that I heard growing up, the Bud Hursiths and Tom Stevens growing up in LA was a huge, huge influence. Probably the biggest influence on me as far as just the archetype of what an orchestral trumpet player can sound like. Yeah. Optimal. And also Tom was also very much of this lineage from Mr. Stamp. And very much I used to talk about him and still do as a poster child of you know, you do stamp right, you can sound like this. Yeah. Even this in his playing and his ability to play anything from Barrio Sequenza to a Mahler Symphony to what whatever it was. I mean, it just in the most spectacular, consistent, wonderful fashion. I mean, Tom was a huge influence, Mr. Herseth as well. Other people I listened to, more Maurice Andre, Morris Murphy. Um the list goes on. I mean, there's a lot of different people I've I've kind of you know used as touchstones along the way, and you know, listen to what they did and just like, man, how how do they make that sound? How do they do that thing? And then figuring out how I can incorporate that into my own playing. And, you know, just I don't know. There's just a lot of things that have inspired and motivated me over the years that you know is and there's all these younger players too, man. You know, there's guys like Chris Martin and a lot of even younger guys than that, you know, guys coming up, uh, you know, like James Vaughn and Will Leathers, and I mean there's a there's a lot of young guys out there, and Rand Jones, and it's a great, great playing. Yeah, uh, you know, it's it's continues to inspire me. And that's to me, I guess, if I can kind of wrap it in a nutshell, my philosophy and how I've approached all of this is my dad was very much like this with his business, and I've tried to echo this as well is that my dad always talked about things as if he was a student. That he was a always a perpetual student and always curious and seeking information and seeking to evolve and seeking new information to make what you do better, to understand things deeper, to really search and seek out those people that knew more than he did and that or that I did, you know, do things better than I can. Yeah. And you know, over the course of my life, I've tried to do to surround myself with those kind of people who are going to challenge me, who I was going to, you know, really, really be inspired by and hopefully inspire in turn for for you know different reasons. Yeah. That mutual kind of a thing. And that's that's how I've gone about a lot of this. I saw that in a lot of these older guys I mentioned. I saw a lot of that same kind of you know, fire throughout their career of like, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know, kind of a vibe. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of you know, here I am. I'm you know, 38 years into playing in Cleveland plus the two in in Houston. I'm 40 years into this, and I still feel like you know, I'm looking, I'm trying to look at things in a fresh way every time I do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

That's great. You've covered so much. This is so great. I'm like, wow, there's so there's so much to ask now. Go for it, man. I'm really your unique circumstance of like you haven't had a music degree uh but you've you know had all these teachers and stuff. Um it's definitely not the norm, very unique. What are your thoughts on on like if a young musician is I mean, this is a pretty this could be a big question, but if a young musician is trying to get into an orchestra or just trying to do trumpet in general, is the degree more important or the person you're studying with more important? Or yeah, maybe let's start that.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

That's a great question. And it's an important question because I think I probably would have answered this differently maybe 15, 20 years ago, or even 40 years ago when I was in that place, than I will answer it now. Sure, yeah. You know, I mean the way I look at things as a teacher, I I'm gonna answer this in an interesting way, and then I'll I'll I'll come around. Don't worry. But as a teacher, when I'm teaching a student, my feeling is that I'm not just teaching them how to play the trumpet, I'm not just teaching them music, I'm teaching them deduction and critical thinking, assessment and you know, preparation and execution. Because so much of the time as a musician, it's a solitary endeavor. If I'm studying with somebody at best, say I have a two-hour lesson with them, which is might be unique. Say I've got two hours of chamber music coaching and two hours in a studio class and maybe even a brass class. So I got eight hours with them, which is like, you know, that's that's that's that's that's the best case scenario. The other, you know, 25 hours or whatever that I'm practicing trumpet, I'm on my own in the practice room. So a great teacher is somebody who shows you and gives you the tools to be able to do the work. The tools to be able to have the thought process for the deductive reasoning and critical thinking it takes to assess what you're doing, come up with a plan. How do I get from point A to point B? I mean, usually it's this, it's not usually it's rarely a straight line. There's a lot of that, right? As Stamp used to say, you gotta go around, as Stamp used to say, sometimes you gotta go around the barn a few times before you find the entrance. You gotta go down a few blind alleys before you find the street. I mean, you gotta, you gotta, you know, there's a lot of trial and error, and there's a lot of failure in practicing. If you just practice what you can already do, that's not gonna help you. You gotta practice the stuff that is your Achilles. You can't be afraid to I'm gonna clean it up here with the language. You you cannot be afraid to not sound good when you practice.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

You can't be afraid of that. It's like you have to lean into it, but you have to be smart about it. You can't practice the trumpet nine hours a day and bang away at stuff, otherwise, your face is gonna be a hamburger. You have to be smart. It's like your lip is like any other muscle in the body. So you have to condition it. So you have to you have to get the information from somebody who can give you the tools to show you how to warm up, how to create a good fundamentals routine, how to apply that fundamentals in those fundamentals into your musical expression. What musical expression you use for different things in different ways, different styles, different pieces, different moments within different pieces. You know, all those things come into play. But you have to have somebody who's a guidepost to help you with creating the thought process to be able to make the right decision. So bringing in full circle, who you study with, is a gigantic piece of the puzzle. It's gotta be somebody who resonates for you, who has the information that you're seeking, who is teaching a style of playing that you want to emulate, plays in a manner that you want to emulate. That is the type of person who's not dogmatic and saying, you know, in a binary way, black and white, this is one way, the only way to do it, it's one way to do it, it's my way, and that's it. But who's open and is going to teach different people different ways? That's one of the great things I saw about Mr. Stamp is I saw him teach other people. And those same people had similar issues that he was addressing with them, that he was addressing with me, but he addressed it in a completely different manner, in a completely different language, using different exercises, taking a different route, because of the way he knew their thought process and their digestion of information worked. Right? So you need to find a teacher who's gonna, you know, craft a course of study for you, the individual. So you're you know, you're Jaden. I'm you're not you're not me when when you come out of that. You're the best version of you to cultivate that. So I'd say my best piece of fight, seek that first. Find that person, find an environment where there are great players just who are better than you. Don't just be a big fish in a pond and feel like, okay, this is cool. Seek out those that do it better, find out where that is and go there and then listen to them, watch them, and try to figure out what they're doing. That's what I did. I wanted to be around the best players possible. When I was playing these orchestras in LA, most of the people I was playing with were, you know, three, four, five years older than me. And they were better than me when I was 19, 20 years old. So I wanted to do that because it's like I watched them and I was like, oh, that's how they do that. Or maybe they did something that I didn't necessarily think, well, I'm not gonna do that. That's that's not my taste. But they did that to get that, so I'm not gonna do that. It works both ways. So that's another thing. So environment's very important, and not just as trumpet players, just as musicians in general. Yeah, trumpet players, especially, but musicians in general, finding that kind of environment. You know, as an undergraduate, I'm glad I didn't go to a conservatory because as a 17-year-old coming out of high school, I started my freshman year as a 17-year-old. I turned 18 during the fall of my freshman year. And I I didn't have the maturity, I didn't have the focus, I didn't have the mindset. If I would have gone to a conservatory, I wouldn't have made it.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

It wasn't for me. I was much better being in a little like kind of off the grid environment. Still intensive with somebody like Tony Plough, intensive with being in some of these groups. UCLA win ensemble is a terrific group, and there's some older, older trumpet players in particular and trombone players who really, really put it out there. And really, you know, we're we're kind of like, wow. Okay, that's possible. I gotta step up my game. I wanna figure that out. So, you know, I was lucky in that sense, but you know, you have to figure out what what resonates for you. Some people coming out of high school, they're ready for a conservatory and they're ready to to make that focus. I personally wasn't. So it was better that I was in that environment and able to take my time to figure out when my focus was going to come to music, if it did. And when it did, then I was ready, then I jumped in, you know, 100% all in. So that's you know, that's kind of the way I'd answer it. I'd say I'd start with first and foremost, a teacher and a mentor. You don't want somebody who's your dad, you don't want somebody who's your best friend, you want somebody who's your teacher, who's an educator, who's going to teach you again, not just trumpet, is going to teach you critical thinking and deduction and reasoning and logic and the ability to have the tools to be able to figure it out with their guidance and their kind of guardrails around the circumstances. And then that could be that could be in a university environment as a music major. That could be something like what I did. That could be a conservatory. That could be a a lot of that could take a lot of different ways, but it's gotta be to me, my best advice to anyone is to follow the path that is singularly best for you. There is no one path that fits everyone. The path I was on happened, I happened to go lucky and it worked. I decided to do it. I mean, when I tell people I didn't decide until I was 20 that I really wanted to do this, they were like, you know, because most people that would be like way too late.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

And there's I mean there's there's others in similar situations, but it's worked out, it's been great. And a lot of young musicians that I talk to when they're talking about going into music, they're always like, Well, I want to go to North Texas or I want to go to Berkeley, and I want to go to these big schools simply because of the the name of the school, you know? And which I don't think is necessarily wrong, but like you said, I think making sure that there's the person that's really gonna work for you is is at one of those schools. And so would you recommend for those young players before jumping into a bachelor's or a master's program, getting together with the teachers from those schools and seeing which one they work with the best?

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Absolutely. Chemistry between teacher and student is is essential. And with each of these people, with with Tony, with Gould, with Mr. Stamp, I mean the chemistry was very palpable and very positive for me. And I feel like you need to feel that. You need to feel like you're walking away from every lesson feeling challenged and feeling like, you know, I'm you know, this it may sometimes it may be a little tough to swallow, but this ultimately is, you know, I'm I'm on the right path with the right person. That you feel you feel that undercurrent of that. You know, that's that's a very important thing. Uh but again, you know, you go back to you know, where somebody's gonna choose. I mean, all those that you know, North Texas or Berkeley or Juilliard or Curtis or you know, any of these places, you know, these are magnificent schools, and you you can't go wrong. It's just a matter of where do you fit? How are you gonna get the stylistic approach and uh the philosophy that resonates for you?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

That was the case for me. I I just studied here in Utah at a school here, Utah Valley University, and I thought about man, uh been might have been like my junior year. Got a a trumpet teacher who came in, his name is Ryan Nielsen. He's a just phenomenal teacher, and he has everything that you're talking about of like he just he knows how I think and my process and my background and how to like help me understand things in my way, which was it was incredible to to get to to work with him and and whatnot. And I re but I remember um some of the other musicians there, uh like in the other ensembles and stuff, people just weren't taking it as seriously as I would have liked. And I was like, do I transfer to this other university? Like I was like, uh I don't know. But then I uh thought about it, I was like, well, that chemistry is there with with this teacher, and and it was it was incredible. So I decided to stay, and thank goodness I did, because he changed trumpet plane for me wholly, and it was like and I went through an injury where I my upper lip got torn almost in half. And yes, uh bad habits and and uh and whatnot. And so we spend a lot of time after that. I had eight months off the horn while I was figuring things out, and and then uh we as a I guess as a quick side story, we uh there was a doctor in the area who does this with athletes who tear muscles, but he'll draw their blood, take the platelets out, and uh spin them out and then inject the muscle with that, and it helps heal over the course of a couple weeks and whatnot. And so we approached him saying, because I'd put up the mouthpiece and it was just sharp pain, and so I couldn't even make a sound uh without it hurting. Standing still it was fine, but every time I put the horn up, it wasn't it was not feeling good. And so got to meet this doctor, we did this procedure, it hurt terribly, it was awful. Uh but within a month I was back to playing. You thought like PRP and going games. So that was PRP. And so it yeah, wouldn't recommend to go I would recommend the that if you needed it, but just don't get yourself there in the first place. It was it was not not great. But um he's the one that helped me there, and then right after that he was like, Okay, we really gotta like help you understand how this how this piece of metal works. And I was like, Okay, so I like all of my approach and my teaching totally changed from that my last year of uh understanding the trumpet, and it was I'm very glad I didn't transfer schools and that I stayed there, and so so yeah, I I agree 100%. Okay, so moving on, when you were younger in high school and when now you're playing in all these groups, all these bands, all these genres and styles, and then ultimately decide to go the orchestral route. And uh maybe this question could be in two parts. Part one, is it important, in your opinion, is it important or not to go through those musical scenarios and be playing that type of music for your overall musicality? And then I guess part two, what was uh the reasoning behind going into orchestral music as opposed to commercial or jazz?

SPEAKER_03 28:54

I think that the more stylistic arenas that any player can kind of stick their nose in, the better. The more versatile you can be, the more stylistically versatile, and you know, being able to play in many, many different ways and different kinds of groups and different kinds of styles, the more that's gonna come into whatever, you know, whatever pool you decide to finally swim in. I mean, that's yeah, that I mean, I guess the main reason I'll kind of understand these both together. The main reason I picked orchestral, it's just just the way I played, that it always rang truer to me. I always felt like that was what I was built for. That's that's what kind of just physically, mentally, my sound, everything just kind of fed that direction. I felt like that was where I I found the most success. In the classical realm. The commercial stuff, um I mean, truth be told, I can't improvise my way out of a paper bag. I mean, so that's so that's not you know, that's uh you know, uh I'm not very I'm not very good with different languages. I could speak just a little bit of a few different languages, just enough to get by minimal kind of conversational get by kind of stuff. And playing the trumpet like improvisation to me is like speaking a language. It's like you want to speak it. The way I I say it is I can speak it, but it sounds like somebody's speaking a language when it's written out in phonetic. Yeah, you know, the the the the emphasis is wrong, this the the you know the phrasing is isn't quite right, and the the consonants and the vowels are right, but you know, the the syntax isn't, you know. That's the best way I can explain my my improvisation skills. You know, it's not not ready for public consumption, most definitely not. But I love it when we do like big band shows and I've been involved in stuff like that or playing in that style. I I love that. I have a ball. I mean, I yeah, you know, uh I've always been kind of a chameleon that early on, my teachers got me listening to a lot of different music. And my mom listened to a lot of classical music, and my friends listened, and I listened to a lot of rock music, and then I listened, you know, started listening to a lot of the horn band stuff, then I got into more jazz and you know, big band stuff. The older I got. So I listened to a wide variety of things, and I found that if I listened to someone or something, I could mimic that sound quite easily on the horn. I could kind of manipulate my air and and just uh from here I could I could hear it, conceptualize it, and I'd kind of figure out the physical manifestations to make it happen without doing some crazy gyrations and can reconfiguring my face. I could do it kind of with the way I'm generally set up. Yeah. Okay. So I've always enjoyed that and I still enjoy that a lot. And you know, I'll if I got a commercial thing coming up, I'll I'll go and you know, listen to some of you know Doc Severinson's stuff and just get that sound and that kind of production. I've I've hung out with Doc enough and heard it live that it's like I can kind of kind of imagine it.

unknown 31:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

But if I go to like I'll go to like Doc uh doing MacArthur Park on the Jack Jones show, video of him doing that. That's one of my favorite things. I'll go there and I'll just like start listening to the essence of that, or I'll go find some like Arturo Sondoval.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Somebody like that, and just just like get that in my mind and get or go hear, you know, guy like Louis Dowswell or Wayne Bergeron. Those kinds of some of the some of the stuff like some of the pop musical like Jerry Hay and Chuck Finlay and you know, Gary Grant, those guys did. You know, those are kind of my go-to's that just like I'll listen to that and kind of get it in my head and think about what I need to do with my equipment and my my tone production to be able to go there. But you know, I I don't know. I just I always gravitated toward the orchestral stuff. It's where I I found my most success, where I felt most comfortable, most at home, where I found that I I just fit. It just it just resonated for me. And that's it's I just it it was very, very natural for me to go that direction. While still messing around enough in the other stuff to, you know, kind of be able to get by without having to go, you know, dive too deep in that pool that I'm gonna make a fool out of myself.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Right. Stay in the shallow end, right? Yep, yep. Stay in the stay in the kitty pool. Yeah. I think that's that's great. It's let's it's fun to hear uh somebody of your caliber and everybody knows you as an orchestral player, but it's fun to hear you you know and you list off all these other players and all these other genres and like, yeah, I can do this and all that stuff. Like I think at least I feel like for myself being younger, I was uh like I remember they they put me in the orchestra one semester and I was like, Orchestra, like this is lame, like what am I doing? And I I kind of have that mindset for a lot of my time in in in uh college, unfortunately, just because I I think I was just so on track. I I come from a more lead commercial and my my home is where everybody's kind of going like this with their ears, you know, covering their ears because it's loud and high and stuff. But and so I feel I wish I would have been a little bit more open to to stuff. And I was you know, I was Maynard Ferguson, Bergeron, listening to the and like I was like, that was it. That was and that's you know what got me into the trumpet, really. But then to be like, you know, Phil Smith, Michael Sachs, uh people, and I'm like, I don't I don't do that, I don't listen to that. Or I didn't even know the name Jerry Hay for a long time because I was so focused on on other stuff, and so I yeah, maybe that's another question. Uh it's kind of bouncing up what we've talked about. How important is it um for young players to know of the history of trumpet players and the gen the history kind of the history of the trumpet, history of the players, music, regardless of the genre, from knowing where all that music and playing and the pedagogy and everything has come from.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

I personally I think that is one of the most important pillars that's gonna hold up the strength of anyone's playing. Is that knowledge base and knowing who those players were, knowing how they evolved the craft, knowing what their strengths were, and going and listening to their recordings and hearing how their playing evolved over time, how they changed the landscape and up the game and evolved things forward and did particular things that were really special. I mean, all the people I mentioned, I mean, there's also the people like the Yuan Races and Manny Kleins and Malcolm McNabbs and all the studio guys. Um, there's you know, Bernie Glow and Conrad Gazo. I mean, because I I mean you mentioned Maynard Ferguson. I mean, Maynard was a huge part of junior high high school. You know, everybody's playing all Maynard stuff. You know, I went and saw Stan Canton back then when I was 15, 16. I mean, it was just it was the coolest thing to hear these guys. You know, because I studied with Ziggy Alman and he was this big band guy, and I kinda, you know, I kind of always felt like this this real pride that was my first teacher. That's the person who like took a mouthpiece and went on my on my face. It got me started right. So, you know, I just I don't know, it's just it's also the historian in me. I mean, being a history major, being interested in history. Always been interested in the lineages of all these orchestras and the strengths of these players, and you know, talking to a Roger Voisin and hearing about George Majer and his guy his his his father, Rene Voisin, Staliano, the horn player, and Kusovitsky, what you know, the stuff and Char Charles Munch and people like that in Boston, you know, all sorts of different people in New York. And I did take a couple lessons with Vacchiano and spend a little bit of time with Vacchiano. And then, you know, all the roads, those roads like Vacchiano and Stamp, you know, that kind of those guys lead back to Schlossberg. And Schlossberg leads back to Wilhelm Verman, Julius Koslek, leads back to Ernst Saxa, ultimately leads back to Hummel. This leads back to Haydn, you know, so there's all this this connective tissue. But to me, that's a really interesting thing is the connective tissue, we're not that far removed from all of these people. Yeah. And then, you know, there are there are all these lineages going around, and and just understanding where these people came from and these stylistic lineages and and how people played the way they did, you know, how the the more Germanic and Russian players played versus the more French players. And how much does that have to do with the language, with the culture, with you know all sorts of different things? And then now with here in the US, you know, it's more of a melting pot. Of course, Schlossberg looms large, but so does Arban. You know, this this whole thing, all roads there kind of lead to Wilhelm Verme in St. Petersburg, where Schlossberg was for a while. And Julius Kosleck, one of Schlossberg's teachers, was friends with Verme and played with him in the summers in the opera in St. Petersburg. And Arban would go and visit Verm and uh you know dedicated some pieces to Verm. So then Schlossberg came over here, and then Schlossberg, you know, was a great teacher who who all these great players studied with. Wow. And then and then from there it just you know goes like this. And then you have the whole the French tree coming from the Boston guys and George Majer, who Herseth and Bernie Adelstein studied with. Glantz, who came from from Schlossberg, and not from Schlossberg, from who was from um Jacob Barodkin was was was uh Glantz's main teacher. And that's you know, again, this is Russian you know heritage, you know, kind of Wilhelm Werm, you know, the guys in the guys in Moscow at the Bolshoi and the guys of the Marinsky in in St. Petersburg. So there's all these different convergences of all these trees that kind of mesh now. So, you know, to me, to me it's fascinating, and then you start seeing it's like how has playing changed? So you go back and you listen to Timothy Docchester, who is one of the great artists and musicians who happen to play trumpet. He was this great singer who was using the trumpet as a vehicle, is a way to look at it. You listen to his vibrato now, you can't no one plays like that. You can't really play like that. But there's an essence to it that is still extremely applicable. Maurice Andre, who I was lucky enough to hear in a recital in New York. Maurice Andre Live, I have to say, was the most impressive uh brass playing I have ever heard. I mean, I've heard some crazy all those people I've named, I mean, I've heard them all. And I've heard all, you know, the Chris Martins and Joe Alessie's and Garbart Takovis and Morris Murphy's and Bud Hurseth and you know Tom Stevens and Phil Smith and yeah, everyone in between. I've heard them all play and play magnificently state-of-the-art. Wow, I don't know if anybody can ever possibly do it better. But Andre's trumpet organ recital in New York, he was in the mid-80s, like 84-5, something like that. As good as his recordings are live, it was better. It was just, I still have this. I still remember sitting in Alice Tully Hall listening to this and just taking it in and thinking, I just the phrasing, every note, every every little detail, every articulation, every every sound he made on every note, it just was it was perfect, you know. So yeah, but that's that's why it's like I I'm gonna I'm getting out of my soapboxers, I could be an old fart for a second. When as a student, I had to go get I had to go to Tower Records and get a record or a CD and bring it home and then put it on and find where the trumpet stuff was or where this excerpt was or listen to all of it. And kids now, students now, everything is available. Every be between Spotify and YouTube and everything in between, you could you could you could access every possible recording ever made and then some live recording, everything. Find a recording of Herbert L. Clark to something that just happened last week. There's not as much curiosity. There's so much more access, but there's less curiosity because it's easier.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

And I feel like I wish there was more curiosity in young players to go listen to some of these older players, to go listen to Herbert L. Clark, to go listen to Bomer Krill, another great soloist. Any of those great soloists of their day. And go back and listen and know who these guys were and listen to what they did and listen to the artistry. I mean, yeah, the sound's a little scratchy. Yeah, the vibrato's a little funky, but kind of listen through it. And there's so much you can learn. You know, and just and just have that kind of stuff as as as as checkpoints of of different things to to be able to to mimic or or incorporate. Yeah. Yeah. That's where I would go. I just I I feel like listening and and seeking that kind of stuff out historically is extremely important. Could have just said the free beginning and left it at that point that didn't mean to wax on so long.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

No, that's that's great. Totally agree. As as I've been interviewing so many people, I've here and I've even with you, I've heard so many names, I'm like, I don't know who that is. I know what my homework is now. I gotta go.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

Who were some of the names? I'll let me see if I I I can help you out here.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah, no, I'd uh uh Warren Looning, Yuan Resey, um Malcolm McNabb. I'd uh I'd kind of heard of Chuck Finley, but Chuck Finley, a lot of the LA studio guys, Oscar Bashir. Yeah There's so many yeah, so many. I'd heard of Tom Stevens from somebody. Talk to somebody. But now it there's some other ones you'd mentioned that I'm like, I don't I don't know who that is. So I'm gonna have to go back and and do some homework on that. But kind of speaking to that, one of my guys I interviewed was um Josh Kaufman uh over in Army Blues. He's been m big into you know going down rabbit holes and finding people and all that stuff and and whatnot. He said, you know, part of it he like it's like, yeah, you want to share stuff to a certain ext extent. He was like, Yeah, you gotta just I can only tell you so much. You gotta go figure it out and like put in the work. And so to help jump start uh like a young person search for all these players and the history and everything, do you know of any resources where some of the these names are compiled or there's whatever, you know, like because we all know Louis Armstrong, Mainerd Ferguson, and Bud Hersith and all these people that's easy to find, but it's like who else was there that the names just aren't as well known? And uh are this has anybody written down lists or can made a book or anything about these players?

SPEAKER_03 43:05

There are a few books. There's a book David Hickman did, I know, with uh that has a history of a lot of various trumpet players in their bios. There's an older book that Louis Davidson did that was compiling a questionnaire. He sent a questionnaire to all these great trumpet players and got back like who is their teacher and what's their equipment and what kind of stuff do they work on. And he just published them in a book. I think without asking them. But it's it's it's out there. I think it's like profiles of tr trumpet trumpet profiles or something like that. David Louis Davidson. There's also a great book from Ed Tarr called East Meets West, which uh has a lot of the history going back to kind of the the Germany, Eastern European, Russian trumpet history, and also the kind of kind of I think I think mostly that, but also the French tree and how that all kind of comes together and some some of the various people from that era. And then some of That is also just if you're listening to different orchestras, you listen to the Cleveland Orchestra, you could look up and you see that it's it's me or it's Bernie Adelstein, and you start looking into Bernie Adelstein. Really interesting character because Bernie played before he was in Cleveland with Zell in 1960. He was for um for 10 years he was in the Minneapolis Symphony, which is now the Minnesota Orchestra with Durotti, and there's a bunch of recordings on Mercury Records of Bernie playing with the Minneapolis Symphony, doing there's a great Petrushka, the Great Ride of Spring. I mean, there's some some wonderful stuff.

unknown 44:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

And then he was before that, he was a year with Durotti as principal in Dallas, and then before that, when he was 16, Mitz Reiner hired him as second trumpet in Pittsburgh in 1944. He left Cleveland when he was 60, but he'd been playing for 44 years. That's crazy. Bernie's a real interesting character, but you look into any any of these orchestras, you see some really interesting characters.

unknown 45:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Different and different lineages and different people. Before Phil Smith for about five years was Jerry Schwartz and Lou Ranger. And then with there, you start looking at, I mean, Schwartz has some really interesting um solo trumpet records. There's a cornet record and another one called Age of Splendor, which is a Baroque record that is sensational. Also a soprano, a piccolo trumpet, a Baroque record. And then Lou and Jerry Schwartz, Ray Mace, Lou Soper, Gould, a bunch of guys in the mid-70s, did these New York trumpet ensemble recordings that are also really great. And then before them was Vakiana, before Vakiana was Harry Glantz, before Harry Glantz was Gustav Hein. And you start, you know, looking at you know who these guys were and and what they were doing. You know, LA Phil, you had Tom Hooten's fabulous player. Before him was Tom Stevens, before Stevens was a guy named Les Remsen. Before Les Remsen was Vladimir Drucker, who's another guy who was in the studios, who was who studied with Schlossberg. And Vladimir Drucker played played a year here, he played a year in San Francisco, he played a little bit in the LA Phil, then he went into the studios.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Back then the studios paid more. So you had Vladimir Drucker and and you know Yuan Racy and Manny Klein and Rafael Mendez. Bamp also came out from Minneapolis in 44 to to work in the studios. I think he was working at Disney. I'm not exactly sure. I think Disney, one of the studios for RKO, Paramount, one of those. So you start looking into it, it's just like this spider web of all this intricacy. Like you mentioned some of the some of those guys, you know, like Yuan who did Chinatown.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:44

Also did American in Paris. Go watch the movie American in Paris from from 51, and that's that's Mr. Racy. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. So I mean, okay, take like American in Paris. So when I play Gershwin, American in Paris, I go listen to Yuan Ray play. And I go listen to there's there's some older recordings of Gershwin and the Paul Whiteman guys playing Gershwin. Okay. Go to the source for the stock. So I'm listening to that and I'm trying to mimic that. Or I saw a masterclass where Doc Severinson taught, actually, one of my students played some American Imperial stuff for him, and Doc played it, which was like, you know, this bravura. It was, it was smoke it. It was great. I could never play it like that. I mean, you know, people kill me. There's something about it where it's like, I can't do exactly that, but there's there's a lot I could use there. There's there's a spark there, energy there that I definitely can use.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

So so that's yeah, I would just I would just say find, you know, find recordings that you like and then start digging in, like who are these players? And then all the pop music, all the stuff Jerry Hay did, you know, you start start going into that.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Yeah. Yeah, his his new book that came out is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

It's so I was one of the first guys I I bought I bought four of them, one for me and one for each of the other guys in the section here.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Well, yeah, oh, it's I've gone through and I'm just looking at some of the stuff like, oh my gosh. Wow. And then I've been like listening to somebody compile a playlist of like everything that I've been going through and listening.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

I'm like, this is so good, man. It's frightening, and a lot of that, those guys were doing it, you know, analog. Those guys had to knock it down. I mean, it wasn't like you could, you know, piece it all together now. No, no, no. Those guys, those guys are doing it like Yeah, it's crazy. No, no, it's it's mind-boggling and impressive.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

It is, yeah. Anytime. So to wrap up our conversation, one last question. What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you were younger?

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Being patient is one of the great virtues that will help you. Don't take things too seriously. Don't get too wound up if you're not figuring something out immediately. I mean, I was very impatient. I get very frustrated very quickly when I was younger. And if I could tell my younger self anything, it would be just have a play the long game. Some stuff in the short game you'll figure out. Play the long game. Be diligent and just figure it out. And just it's all about ingraining the right habits and reinforcing the right habits. And I was very fortunate early, early on, my teachers instilled in me a very strong sense of creating good fundamentals, getting a good warm-up, making sure that I was doing my Arbon, Schlossberg, Clark, then you know, add in bylin, Gecker articulation studies endurance drills, Francaine, you know, method, Shoebrook, and any number of different, you know, books you can get into with that. Playing melodious atudes, Conconi's, Roshus, Phil Snedeker's books, Phil Collins' books, Chris Gecker's books, and anything with lyrical atunes, changing styles, cultivate your sound. I mean, I was lucky I had some, you know, my teachers, I had teachers that were all about cultivating a great sound, cultivating great fundamentals, you know, really, really digging that down and really setting it in right and working to make those things consistent. And that the consistent correct way becomes the habit. That you're always reinforcing and stacking upon good things. And that's that's the best way. And I mean, if you really look back at like, okay, take Stamp, for instance, or Schlossberg, which Stamp Schlossberg is relative. Yeah, so much of it is about having your air moving the correct way, having your air support happening correctly. What's happening between the notes, the connective tissue between the notes, going center of one note directly to the center of the next note, the evenness throughout your ranges, the consistency and clarity and ease of your articulation, like your speech, the convergence of air and articulation, the timing of the of the start of the note, whether it's a poo attack or a two attack or any anything in between. And having that facility and that consistency, and then with that, you start spreading out like how far the parameters of of how you know how far you can swing one way or the other between staccatissimo, legatissimo, from three P's to three F's, from you know, double G down to pedal C. And just having all of that aligned and understanding where those slots belong. And that a lot of it for me was synthesized when I started seeing Mr. Stamp and everything from that. A lot of those elements. But I was already having a lot of that baked in when I was younger, when I was in high school and especially in college with with Tony and then with Mr. Stamp. Um, you know, that's that's really the best, the best thing I would say is just have patience. Get good guidance, have patience. As long as you're doing the right stuff and have the right concept, eventually it will come. And sometimes it's one of those things where you wake up three months, six months, a year later, and all of a sudden you can single-tongue faster. Your range is increased. You know, stuff is happening much better and much more efficiently. And the more you can get it, so the trumpet just feels like it's an extension of your voice, and it's just you're just singing through the horn. And it feels easy, it feels natural, it feels as if playing the trumpet is like you're speaking or singing, that it's just it it's that natural and that easy and that efficient. And that's then you know that's kind of the barometer, you know things are heading the right way.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Michael, again, this has been great. Thank you so much for taking so much time out of your busy schedule to chat with me and tell tell us about your story, your experience, and thoughts on the trumpet and everything. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Jade.

SPEAKER_03 52:37

It's my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

We'll let you know when uh when the book is done, we'll send you a copy. Yeah, I'd be very curious to see it. Yeah, me too. I'm uh I'm expecting to see how it turns out. So awesome. Well, thank you again.