|
GG: Who was the best trumpeter you ever heard?
WB: You know, I knew these weren't gonna be easy...
GG: You can give the political answer or you can give me the real answer.
WB: The best trumpeter I ever heard...
GG: You can split it into categories, like the best lead player.
WB: I think the best lead trumpet player I ever heard on recording was Conrad Gazzo, just for shear sound, sound pressure, pitch, phrasing? I would have liked to hear him live, just to hear what that really sounded like.
GG: What environment did you hear him in?
WB: I heard him on Sinatra records, Billy May records, and that stuff impressed me, even with the lower -tech recording and stuff. Can you imagine what that would sound like today, really capturing all of that. Al Porcino also, another guy from that same era -same kind of thing -just an unbelievable concentration of sound.
GG: How about legit?
WB: For soloist, I like Phil Smith, he plays with the New York Philharmonic. I like Rolf Smedvig who used to play with the Boston Symphony -he leads the Empire Brass Quintet. I also like Hakan Hadenberger...
GG: Excuse me?
WB: He's from, I don't know, Sweden, one of those "damn foreign countries"...
GG: (Laughter)
WB: But that guy, he's probably one of the finest piccolo trumpet players I've heard.
GG: How about jazz guys?
WB: That's another tough one... Freddie Hubbard, when I was young anyway, was someone I heard a lot of. I really dug his playing a lot -real innovating.
GG: I always thought he had a great combination of good technique and a great feel.
WB: Yeah, great feel and he had chops too, and beautiful vibrato -great ballad player. Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan... I kind of dug Lee for the rawness, the reckless abandon way he blew into the horn, just like LOUD... He wasn't really a subtle player but it was cool. He had a lot of edge to his playing.
GG: How old was Lee when he died?
WB: Lee was young, Clifford was younger.
GG: Yeah Clifford was in his mid -20's?
WB: Yeah, 26. And Lee died, I don't think he made it to 40. You think about those cats, Clifford especially, guys are still studying his solos and transcribing his stuff, and he was 26. That's a lot of years ago and it's still setting the standards.
GG: When did you decide you wanted to so this for a living?
WB: You call this a living?
GG: It's relative, I guess.
WB: Actually, that I've known since I was a kid. Almost since I started playing.
GG: 5th grade, 6th grade?
WB: I started in the 7th grade. Actually started playing in drum and bugle corps shortly before that, playing the bugle. When I was in Jr. high, I had these natural high chops, so the band director that was there saw that I had potential, so he started giving me some trumpet lessons.
GG: You say you had "natural high chops", do you think that was a genetic thing, just wired in, or...
WB: I think so. I could play a double high C in the 7th grade.
GG: Could you play anything else?
WB: Well, I had a sound, volume, but I didn't know how to read music, and I just kind of bumbled around, fingering-wise. I chipped this front tooth that same year, and I don't know if you noticed a lot of lead trumpet players have gaps between their teeth. It doesn't mean you have to or anything...
GG: Was that just a happy accident then?
WB: Yeah, if you have a place for the air to channel between the lips, you don't have to make any adjustments, blowing below the teeth or anything like that.
GG: Do some guys do it intentionally?
WB: Yeah, some guys have had their teeth ground and done weird things like that, and it doesn't necessarily work. It's a combination of different things - and I've had this tooth fixed - and couldn't make a sound!
GG: So, skipping to after high school and college, what were some of your early professional experiences?
WB: When I was in high school I played in a lot of top 40 bands, and later, I left college to work at McDonnel-Douglas doing machine shop work, just cause I needed money. I was still playing, but not very seriously, I never really practiced or anything.
GG: Did you ever have a period of your life where you did that 4-6 hours a day woodshedding?
WB: No.
GG: Never did that.
WB: I do now...
GG: Is that maintenance?
WB: Maintenance and trying to get better. The last 10 years I probably practiced more than I did ever when I was younger. It was easier when I was younger, and I was never held to any standard then. It wasn't until I did this big band for trombonist Dave Wells and first met Brandon Fields. This was the first truly great sax player, I mean this guy was so much better than anybody I had ever worked with, I couldn't even believe this guy!
GG: I still can't quite believe him.
WB: So we got to be friends, and just from tapping into that different circle of people -he knew some better players - I was introduced to some trumpet players he knew -Walt Fowler -who was and is a great jazz player - I noticed these guys were a lot better than me. I hadn't really run into that kind of competition before. I think I improved and gained a lot of seasoning from checking out better players at that time. But as far as just "shedding", taking lessons and opening books...I never really did much of that.
GG: I had the same "disadvantage" in that I had enough natural talent, the music part came easy enough, and I (and my teachers) had a tendency to ignore the technical preparation I should have been doing, in favor of just getting to the music part of it.
WB: I think natural ability will take you so far, but it does get to a point were those bad habits will catch up with you. Even though, being a natural player, you worked your way around those problems - I used to play with so much pressure and cram the horn down your throat. And when you're a kid you don't think about that -everything's coming out and you figure out how to do it -but as I get older, I want to last - you know "playing this instrument, it's kickin' my butt..."
GG: It's like when you're a kid you can eat whatever you want and it doesn't matter.
WB: Yeah, so you have to develop new habits so I spent... probably somewhere in my later 20's I realized I'd better undo some of these bad habits so when I'm 55, 60 years old I can still do this.
GG: That's pretty foward-thinking for a young guy.
WB: I knew I wanted to play when I was a young kid, but I kinda thought I was invincible then.
GG: After your top-40 club band gigs, when did you realize you could compete in a professional environment?
WB: My first road gig with anybody of any name was Buddy Miles, an R&B guy, played drums and guitar. He played in the Band of Gypsies with Jimi Hendrix. I quit my job at McDonnel-Douglas, went to New York - I can't remember what the money was, it was something ridiculously low, maybe $300 per week. So we get to New York, do maybe two to three gigs, never get paid, they just stranded us there.
GG: Charming.
WB: So, that was my first road experience, but I met some great players, guys I still keep in touch with, and that was how my career really branched off, through those guys and the people I met through them.
GG: When did the studio work start to kick in for you?
WB: I went on the road with Maynard Fergusen in '86, and when I came back from that, I had a bit of a reputation from playing with him...
GG: Did you record with him?
WB: Yeah, I did 3 CD's with him. And after that it seemed like I could get a little better work.
GG: So you could build on your reputation.
WB: Yeah, that seemed to help for some reason. I mean, I haven't seen it help a lot of people, but for me, it channeled me in the right direction. I was living in Long Beach for a long time, then decided to move to Burbank. I was starting to do a little bit of work in LA and thought "Maybe if I'm closer..."
GG: You think that helped?
WB: It definitely helped. People even joked about it, especially the older guys: "Aw, you're moving to be closer to the studios..."
GG: Kind of from a defensive position.
WB: Exactly, but it actually helped because I can remember getting several last minute calls from guys, from Joe Davis, who's no longer with us - as a matter of fact, Joe gave me my first session after I moved to Burbank. He seemed to take me under his wing a little bit, he was a pretty seasoned player and I looked up to him a lot. From that point, it's been a gradual churning, getting a little better every year.
GG: How does that reality of the scene in Los Angeles differ from your expectations of it?
WB: When I first started doing it I thought "This is great! It's a nice way to make money and I'm around good players 99% of the time." And I thought it would always be like that. But when it's not like that, it's very frustrating. When you get into another situation where the players are as good... you get spoiled. I wanna be the worst guy on the gig. I wanna be the least experienced player on the session.
GG: Well, good luck!
WB: I wanna learn from all the great cats - guys like Warren Luening, when I get to sit with them it's always a great learning experience.
GG: Did your approach to your playing change as you transitioned from big band, commercial playing to TV/Film stuff?
WB: Definitely. Somebody, at one point suggested to me "You might want to go see a classical teacher and round your playing out a little more." So I did. I went to see Boyd Hood and really helped me a lot. Also I noticed the work trend, so many of the score for pictures were orchestral in nature, and you really can't come in there playing like Doc Severinsen. So I took a good look at that, and started checking out that end of my playing and found a lot of holes in it. So to this day, that's mainly what I work on.
GG: Can you change hats, go back and forth?
WB: I'm think I'm pretty good at it now. I mean, I'm not going to go be a classical soloist, but I can go sit in an orchestra, play 2nd or 3rd trumpet and I don't think they mind having me there. I feel like I'm doing it justice. I think that style for me is harder than doing your band, even though playing big band and rock & roll is more demanding physically, shifting gears that other way, getting that pureness of tone, lower overtones in the sound, that's work for me.
GG: Talk a little about your section mates in the Big Phat Band.
WB: I hate those cats. All of em. They're all pricks.
GG: Well, why don't you fire em?
WB: I was going to mention that to you here, we should do this off the record probably... (laughter)
GG: I guess we're stuck with them for now. Let's talk about the guys on the CD. The lead trumpet responsibilities were yourself...
WB: Gary Grant on the first date and Dennis Farias on the 2nd date. That first date was exciting because, although I'd known of Gary a long time now, seeing his name on thousands of records, I was just getting to know him a little bit and it was fun to sit and play with him hands on cause he's such a presence as a person and a player. He's an intense guy, funny but intense, and he adds a little adrenaline rush to my playing anyway.
GG: Yeah, I could feel that vibe in the room on the date.
WB: He raises the bar pretty high as to how we should sound together. So when we're playing his whole thing is "OK, here we go, we're gonna nail this to the wall!" He's a very well-rounded player, practices all the time, hitting it hard every day.
GG: Both Gary and Jerry Hey, what they bring to it is a level of professionalism and if there's an attitude, it comes from the fact that they want to hit the target in the center, and...
WB: There's no exceptions.
GG: Right.
WB: It's never "That's good enough." And Jerry is even more intense, he can hear the grass grow!
GG: Also on that date we had Larry Hall.
WB: Yeah, Larry's a very good friend of mine. Don't tell him I said that.
GG: Just you and me and the Internet.
WB: Larry is one of the most well-rounded trumpet players in town. You can't find a better guy to play 2nd trumpet under you. I love having him on gigs I do because he makes my job easier - makes it feel good, puts the pitch right down the shoot, has a great sound, can play lead, legit, anything.
GG: The other two guys on those dates were Dennis Farias and Dan Savant.
WB: Dan is a very good section player, very conscientious. I know he doesn't play as much as he used to due to his contracting business, but before a date like that I know he shedded real hard and practiced, made sure his chops were together. He sat right next to me and he nailed every note to the wall.
GG: I know he feels a strong responsibility to you guys when he's up there.
WB: Yeah, he did great. And Dennis is another guy I love to play with. We work a lot together and he's a solid lead player, he's a good bebop player...
GG: Dennis is a real passionate guy, and you can really hear that in his playing.
WB: He's got a lot of soul - he's one of my favorite flugelhorn guys. He's a great lead player, that goes without saying, he's got a great sound, and he's another guy I feel I can blend real well with. And he's a horse! I mean, a horse of a player- you know when we're playing that stuff, it's not a one man job.
GG: Tell me about your relationship with the drummer in a big band context.
WB: Uh, I just like to fight 'em the whole way.
GG: (laughing) Like any good marriage.
WB: When I'm playing, what I listen to is the drums and bass, more than anything else. I try to get my pitch from the bass, so I know it's at least close to where it's supposed to be and that will help everything on down.The drummer, I consciously try to make sure I'm hitting with him on every hit. Some drummers play a little more on top, and after you play with a guy for a while you get to know where he's gonna put the notes. Now, I'm not gonna fight that unless it's real extreme and lame because they can both be kinda cool, you know guys put their grooves in different places and it's still great. There's a lot of great drummers who that also - they're really listening to the brass section and are almost leaning on us for the time.
GG: I love drummers whose sense of musicality allows them to be flexible with the time when it's appropriate.
WB: Yeah, I think that's cool. I think the general consensus is that we should play great time, but within that great time it can move around a little bit.
GG: If you remember on "Sing Sang Sung" we started out with a click track but realized it needed to evolve as we got through the tune.
WB: That's right. And it doesn't sound like it's rushing.
GG: You've played in big bands for so many years now - what are some of your pet peeves? What drives you crazy?
WB: Um... that's kind of a long list...
GG: (laughter)
WB: Bass player with bad pitch is the worst for me. Because the whole band just plays out of tune and everybody's working twice as hard just to produce their tone on their instrument, which makes the time drag 'cause everyone's working harder. Ungiving drummers, I really don't like - guys that won't give, are not listening to what's going on, having tunnel vision. I just want everybody to listen. It could just be one cat not listening that screws it up, he's playing too loud, or not putting enough energy out, that bothers me. In the trumpet section the thing that drives me nuts is when we hit a note and have established how we're playing time, and somebody gets behind. It just makes it feel "logy". Inner parts should never hang over the top part. Not that the top part should hang over all that much either, but it (the top part) could have a little more length sometimes.
GG: Do you think the cause of that is ego, or just a lack of listening ability?
WB: Some guys just don't have that ability - that's part of being a great musician, I think that's real high on the list - adapting to your surroundings and listening to what's going on around you. That's what makes a crappy band a great band. If everybody's doing that, they don't even have to be the greatest players. If everybody's trying and zeroing in and is aware of how loud they're supposed to play and getting that section balance right,
that's cool.
GG: Well, that's not that long of a list...
WB: I could go on I guess... (laughter)
GG: How about the opposite - what are some things about the idiom that still stimulate you after all these years?
WB: When it's right, as a matter of fact, on the first date for your record the first thing we played, I remember the band hitting something together and I was like "This is so happening and so tight that this is gonna be like the ultimate experience." This is how it's supposed to be. When you look around at that band, you look at every chair and say "everybody here has all the qualities. Everybody here listens. Everybody here knows how to play any chair in the band." That trombone section (Andy Martin, Alex Iles, Steve Holtman, Bill Richenbach, Craig Ware) had such unbelievable balance, pitch, sound, all those other good things. Looking down that saxophone section, (Dan Higgins, Sal Lozano, Gordon, Bill Liston, Greg Huckins) everybody's taking care of biz. That's why that sax section sounds so smooth - everybody's got effortless technique on their instrument. They all swing, they all play be-bop, everyone's got complete command of their instrument and their doubles, so that, to me, is just the ultimate. We just hit a note and, boom! We don't have to talk about anything. All we have to do is roll the tape and play. We can polish it from here.
GG: Hey, aren't we just the coolest?
WB: Well, you & I are. The rest of the cats can only play great.
--
|
