I have been extremely busy lately with things that seem to be mostly designed to keep me… well, busy. Don’t ever doubt busy work, it really does exactly what it says it will do. In the process of doing this work, however, I came across an old review from my time in the San Francisco Symphony. This was a review of a concert during my first season with that orchestra that featured Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony on the first half and the Brahms Second Piano Concerto on the second half. The review was glowing regarding the Shostakovich, which was fortunate for me since I was playing principal on that piece, but the Brahms incurred the wrath of Joshua Kosman, the classical music reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle (where do these guys come from anyway?). His discussion of the second half opened with the following phrase:

After intermission, though, things went bad in a hurry, as pianist Vladimir Feltsman conspired with the orchestra to stomp on Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto.

I have always gotten a kick out of that particular piece of journalistic bravado. I’m sure all involved parties enjoyed their stomping conspiracy, but sadly I was left out of that particular round, maybe next time.

By the way, where is it that we get to write about someone who conspires to stomp on some of the best classical musicians in the world on a weekly basis? Oh yeah, that’s right… That can be done right here!

I tried looking for a bio for Joshua Kosman online, but I couldn’t find one anywhere. The closest thing I found was a page that mentioned that he had received his Master’s Degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Master’s in what? It didn’t say. I wonder how much real music training one has to go through before you are qualified to shred world class musicians in major publications? It’s ironic that the ones getting criticized are the musicians who have dedicated their lives into creating a product, rather than the critics who essentially spend their lives destroying one.

Today I am headed to California, back to the city by the bay, back to the state where my orchestral career began, back to one of my favorite places on the planet. I won’t be there for long, just tonight and tomorrow in San Francisco, then a few days with family out in the East Bay, but it will be enough time to reflect (again) on the paths I have followed, where they have taken me, and where I go from here.

I got my Master’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory, and I distinctly remember the idyllic dreams I had about playing the trumpet for a living, and the kind of life it could bring me if I could just get good enough. Most of those dreams are laughable at this point; as I have moved through my career I have realized that many of the things I dreamed about essentially don’t exist. That being said, however, there are many great adventures and experiences that have been thrown my way simply because I have a fair proficiency at buzzing my lips together and making some neat sounds with a fancy brass tube. I have travelled around the world on this ability, played in the world’s great concert halls, played with some of the world’s greatest musicians (even Metallica!), and lived all over the country and met all kinds of interesting people. It has been quite a ride, an unexpected and jarring one at times, but good nonetheless. I wouldn’t have known, during those formative days at the conservatory, to dream of the things that have brought me the most happiness or to stop dreaming of the things that have brought me the most frustration. Then again, that is probably the most likely outcome of dreams: we seldom follow their actual path, but it is the places they take us — the places we never knew or expected — that make those dreams so valuable, so necessary. Today I return to both the source and object of many dreams, to walk some of the same streets and think some of the same thoughts. Today, I’ll be California Dreamin’ again.

So, I have been in the process of trying to move back into a bigger mouthpiece lately, something more along the lines of what I used during my orchestra career (I guess I have missed some of the fatness of sound, soft control, and low register sharpness. It turns out that, at least for me, some of those things get to be a little more of a struggle on smaller equipment). This attempt to go into a bigger mouthpiece, though, has proven more difficult than one would think.

I played the mouthpiece that I won the principal job in Chicago on (a Mt. Vernon 1 1/4C if you are curious), but all I was left with is wondering how I ever managed to win that job playing on that mouthpiece (it tends to ride a bit high… yeah, just a bit). Anyway, I am going through my collection of larger mouthpieces — not finding what I want — when I get a voicemail from my good friend Rod Mathews. On this mesage Rod mentioned to me that he finally got a copy of the recording of me playing the Furtwangler Symphony No. 2 with the CSO, and he mentioned how much he enjoyed my playing on that recording (How nice is that, anyway? To call up your buddy and tell him how much you enjoyed something he did, just because. Very classy.) So I am listening to this voicemail and remembering the CD, when I suddenly remember the mouthpiece I used for that recording, a mouthpiece that I have left inexplicably untried in this process. After hearing the message I promptly dig out the mouthpiece, play a couple of hours on it, and wonder why anyone would ever look for a mouthpiece different from the one in my hands. Now I am no fool; I know that this is only the first practice session on this mouthpiece and that there are bound to be things I won’t like about it after playing on it for a while. However, if it weren’t for a good friend who took the time to send a considerate message, just because, I wouldn’t even have thought of digging it out in the first place.

Yeah, that is what good friends are for, to help you out when they don’t even know you need it. Thanks Rod.

For a while now I have had two brown trumpets sitting on the piano in my studio. Well, they aren’t actually brown, but I affectionately refer to them, with their raw brass patina, as my brown trumpets. They are both C rotaries: one Schagerl and one Thein. Both horns have been a big part of my performing career at one time or another, with performances in some of the greatest halls with two of the world’s top orchestras. They have played Carnegie, Boston Symphony Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Musikverein in Vienna; the list goes on. The Schagerl is the horn I used in the one significant recording that was done while I was playing principal in Chicago, the Furtwangler Symphony #2. Now, though, they sit on an upright piano in my studio in Miami.

I looked them over a few days ago only to find the valves frozen in place and some extra development of their patina. After quite a bit of elbow grease, the Thein’s valves are free and working well, but the Schagerl’s valves remain frozen in place. Looking at the horns, I am struck at how extraordinary a path a couple of sheets of brass can have, and how strange a place it is that they find themselves in now.

Any suggestions on freeing up the valves on a rotary trumpet? I think my Schagerl has plans for life beyond the top of my piano.

On Friday, Jon Faddis gave a master class at the University of Miami, and while parts the class were a bit controversial (something for a future article!), there were also many aspects that deserve attention and action. One of the things he talked about was the legacy of jazz trumpet playing and the importance of listening and imitating, then he demonstrated a stirring rendition of Louis Armstrong, then Roy Eldridge. He knew many solos, by many players, and he had them all memorized. There is something to that.

We live in an age where music is more portable and accessible than ever, and yet it seems that overall musical awareness and knowledge is in a long slow decline. The saddest part is that I see evidence of that decline in musicians and non-musicians alike. If musicians are not studying and listening to music — and I mean studying it enough to know it as well as Mr. Faddis so ably demonstrated — then eventually nobody will. That kind of intimate musical knowledge and ability, the kind that makes a musician a kind of walking musical history demonstration, is something we should all aspire to. Perhaps all of those iPods owned by musicians the world over can be put to better use than simply providing a soundtrack for the walk to lunch. Study the music you love and learn to imitate the artists that make it. You will thank yourself a thousand times over for every minute so invested, and what’s even better, the world of music, and all of us who make it, will thank you too.