Reminds me of this video. It’s a bass trombonist, but the same deal.Flight Of The Bumblebee
Yep, still playing. Not as much as I would like but I’ve been dealing with some health issues, which are resolving so I’m getting back in the swing of things.
I love this guy’s playing; actually, all these guys are pretty damn amazing. Mnozil Brass.
Over my time I’ve played everything and still pretty much like all of it with the possible exception of The New World Symphony. (See above.)
I suspect you’re referring to my time with the Seed and Feed Marching Abominables …
I’m currently playing in a great concert band (some nights we have five euphoniums and at least four tubas, which is monumental and tremendous fun … and we sometimes break out into a tuba/euphonium ensemble, that’s also very enjoyable. We did some German band arrangements last fall and I really want to go back and do more.
I still want to do a season of Senior Corps before I die, though every time I say that, I look at a contrabass and think … “Well, maybe next year …”
Here’s the performance that got Gene Pokorny his gig with the Chicago Symphony:
Played the tuba in Jr. High and High school. Because I was big enough to carry a sousaphone. I had played the trombone and baritone before but I sucked at those and was no better on the tuba. Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, I was born with a tin one in my ear.
Played BBb sousaphone and tuba in high school, bought a CC Conn upright tuba, four-piston-valve nickel plating on inside of bell, circa 1950, in 1978 and have been playing it ever since. No rings for a strap, so I need to tie it to my body with dozens of colorful bandannas when I need to play it on the move. Gold-plated Connstellation mouthpiece I’ve also had since 1978.
Brass bass in N’Awlins style bands, also (oddly enough) for string bands and bluegrass groups.
Bottom of trombone section in various jazz orchestras, including the Yale Jazz Band under the baton of Willie Ruff (F horn player on several Miles Davis/Gil Evans albums…Miles Ahead, Porgy & Bess, Sketches of Spain, etc.).
Wacky shit in Brooklyn like the Park Slope Halloween Parade, playing bass for an accordion marching band, and playing in the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.
Played tuba – as well as flute, tenor sax, and trumpet – with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (a marching Balkan dance band for hipster revolutionaries) in the anti-Bush parades protesting the NYC Republican National Convention in 2004.
Lots of weird amateur groups in Brooklyn that welcome a tuba player. Recently sat in with a flute/violin/accordion/cello group when their string bass player caught the flu.
Mine too. They were the greatest!
Here’s a live performance from 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfc4WIjZGb4
I didn’t know you were playing with Rude Mechanical! I shouldn’t be surprised, though, I can see why you’d be one of those Honk guys. 
I’ve always been pleased we shared a TubaChristmas – I’d like to do that again some fine year.
The Marching Abominables also participate in Honk stuff … I’ve never been, though, and I’m thoroughly retired from the Abombs … but here’s a sample:
We were somewhat of a jinx ... we killed off both those shows! But they're nice little documentaries.The typical range of a tuba is from the B-flat below the bass clef, to the B-flat on the second line of the bass clef. You’ll not-uncommonly see notes up to about a half-octave higher than that, and a few steps lower than that. In principle, there’s no limit to how high you can play, but it’s difficult and uncomfortable to play too high. There is a limit to how low you can play, both an absolute one and a practical one: IIRC, the absolute lowest note possible is the C about two octaves below the low B-flat, but there are a number of “holes” with unplayable notes in between, and the tone quality for those super-low notes is terrible. I was the only tuba player in any of my bands who could actually hit that lowest possible note, and I couldn’t sustain it.
TubaDiva: re: Rude Mechanicals (name taken from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Yeah, they are great fun. I switched out instruments according to the needs of every performance. If Joe Tuba couldn’t show, I played brass bass (Joe is a mighty man with great tone and stamina, if you have him in the group, one bass is all you need). If more Loud was needed I brought a cornet or trumpet. If all they wanted was boots on the ground, the flute was easiest to carry around.
I played tenor on one gig we shared with the infamous Hungry March Band, because we needed to up our Cool quotient. Unfortunately, the Hungry Marchers also included a sole tenor saxophone, who tried to bait me all night into a classic Tenor Battle. Sonny Rollins I ain’t.
(Also, thanx to your tip, I was involved in saxophonist/composer/academic Anthony Braxton’s Music for One Hundred Tubas about ten years ago. There were only about 87 of us because even in the tri-state area it’s hard to find all those tubas. We had to let in some euphoniums and baritones, and you know how that degrades the entire experience…
I did maybe three or four TubaChistmasses, but the only time I had fun was the one where you showed up. Get well and get to New York soon.
Y’all familiar with Heavy Tuba? German group, four tubas, four euphoniums doubling on trombone, plus a rock band. Some stuff features Jon Sass. Heavy Tuba They’ve splintered off into a smaller group playing jazz called Heavy Tuba Experience.
Sass’ solo album is pretty amazing. I don’t think there’s anything on there except him. Lot’s of beatboxing and great grooves.
Jon Sass is a monster, no doubt about it. We seem to be seeing more of him over here these days, which is nice; there was a time he was exclusively in Europeville and didn’t come play here so much.
Like this: Tubaphonic - YouTube
We are blessed with so many great tuba players – I’m sure there’s people I haven’t had the pleasure of finding out about yet but seems like every time I raise my head there’s someone new and fabulous on the scene.
Lemme lay some vintage on you – this is Bill Barber with the Gil Evans Orchestra and Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Bill was a hero to a lot of people for his playing and then a tremendous mentor to many more people because he became a high school band director. I adored him and I wish I had had more time to hang with him.
You MET Bill Barber?
Christ almighty, he was my GOD. The first person to play “modern” jazz on tuba. I used to crank the bass while listening to him on the 1948 “Birth of the Cool” sessions. The opening of “Godchild” where he plays in unison with Gerry Mulligan on bari sax STILL gives me twinges at the base of my spine.
When I read his obit and found out he had been a high school teacher in Long Island I had a major Sad. He should have spent his last years rolling in piles of gold coins earned from playing jazz tuba, living in a mansion in Rio, eating caviare exclusively, and screwing beautiful octoroons.
Nice footage of the Evans/Davis 1959 performance.
Here’s the remastered recording of “Godchild,” for those of us who haven’t memorized it. Love the way the initial rising figure adds the trombone and French horn to the mix halfway through and ends up with the trumpet and alto sax to brighten it. Listen quick, it’s only a three-minute recording. Mulligan was SUCH a fucking genius arranger.
I’m not an aficionado, but Bobby Rush got a grammy for best Traditional Blues Album. Tuba lends a lot of mood to this piece (as well as others on the album): - YouTube
I’m glad that they are acknowledged. When I messed with my sister’s trumpet, I noticed I could play an octave below the supposed lowest notes. And, for me, the tone was better down there, since I sounded awful everywhere else.
I always thought it would be fun to write a piece that used those ultra low notes to make an all Bb trumpet brass choir, but I’ve never done it. You get F# (concert E) at the bottom of the bass cleff up to C (concert Bb) in the middle of the clef, then have to skip to F# on the second line. So your bass notes can be only 5671, basically.
You do say “holes,” however. On tuba, are there more holes than just that one? Heck, are there technically even lower notes on the trumpet? I’d assumed the harmonic series meant that the low F# was the lowest note possible.
My son plays tuba. He chose the instrument back in middle school (middle schools have tuba players!) but because he was so small, he had to play baritone for two years. He was so proud that at 4’10" his 8th grade year, he was finally big enough for the tuba. He’s 15 and 5’2" now, maybe 85 pounds soaking wet. He loves playing the tuba.
He plays marching band in the fall with a sousaphone and switches to tuba for concert band. Don’t know the brands because he uses the school instruments. They are way better than anything we could afford to buy for him at this point. He also participates in a local youth orchestra.
He’s a musical boy, having taught himself to play piano by ear (he’s working on reading the notes), ocarina (because Link does), ukulele, trombone in the high school jazz band, and is taking guitar lessons now and doing well. He’s also working on learning Mongolian Throat Singing. Why? no idea.
Yeah, a lot of people shared your opinion. But not Bill. He was a very humble man, not impressed by himself one bit.
Bill Barber made a lot of peopel pro tuba players just by all those Birth of the Cool recordings … and his work with Sauter-Finegan, among others.
He could have had more, but he felt like he had neglected his family in the early years when he was fresh out of Juilliard and scuffling around. So after he did that for like 10 years he became the band director at Riverhead High School, a job he held until he retired.
He felt he owed it to his family to settle down and be home more, and he was. He could be occasionally lured out for gigs and when that happened it was always very cool. I was fortunate enough to be there for some in the last days, when he’d show up with his “Piggy” and sit down and play. He was always wonderful and swung as hard as ever.
Yes, I was very lucky to know him. We had some correspondence after I left NYC as well, it was so cool. I was always in awe of him and miss him today.
Of course I idolized him; when I was a teenager I heard the Miles Davis “Porgy and Bess” and it was a revelation to me. I didn’t know you could play like that. (In my defense it was marching band and concert band and Dixieland at the time, what did I know?) He opened my ears and my head to a whole different way of playing and changed my style just by doing what he did, which was always soulful and cool as hell.
Someone else who was also a big deal in my life was Don Butterfield. Don’s work with Charles Mingus, like Howard Johnson’s work with Mingus and also with Gil Evans following Bill Barber has informed my playing and shaped my sound tremendously. I was also blessed to work with Don on The New Brass Conference for many years and I am so grateful to have been part of his “hang” – any time spent with Don was always just the most fun thing. He used to call me for stuff on occasion, including when he played Jazz Vespers at St. Peter’s. I loved playing there, it was great to be with Don and just being there, St. Peter’s is a special place to play. Also loved the minister there at the time, John Garcia Gensel; he served the jazz community so beautifully. Man, all these people are gone now; I’d give a lot to do that again.
Here’s Don with James Moody.
Thanks for indulging my stroll down Memory Lane, it's cluttered with musicians!That’s all very cool!
Tuba can also help pay for college, as you will discover a little further down the road.
Whoa, this is some powerful stuff. See what I mean about missing people? There’s not enough hours in the day to listen to everybody. I’m glad you turned me on to this guy 'cause it would have been a shame if I missed him, Lord have mercy.
The tuba player is Kirk Joseph, who is one of the best tuba players on the New Orleans scene ever … former Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Treme, Forgotten Souls … I love his sound, his great sense of time, his deep funk. When I met him he was playing with the Dirty Dozen on a sousaphone that was literally held together with baling wire and chewing gum, just the worst kind of beater … and he rocked that thing. I dunno if I could even have gotten a sound out of that hunk of metal and he was loud and proud and beautiful.
Here’s Bobby Rush with Dr. John … guess he couldn’t get anybody famous to hang with.
Short version: For trumpet players, the upper register is often referred to as “the cash register;” some of them say they pay you “to sail the high C’s” and you throw in the low notes for free.
That being said, there’s some really cool stuff on the lower range of the trumpet, most notably from people like Chet Baker, who rarely played out of the middle and low register; that was his meat and he was very good at it. And a lot of players double on flugel, the horn sings beautifully in the lower register as well. As we mentioned upthread, flugel is a conical bore horn, which makes the horn sound darker than the usual trumpet sound, a mellow kind of tone. (Trumpets and trombones are cylindrical instruments; the width of the tubing is more straight line; flugelhorns, euphoniums and tubas have that conical flare that accounts for the difference in sound.)
Chet Baker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PKzz81m5c