I first started playing trumpet in the sixth grade. That was back in 1965. I continued playing in school all the way through high school. By the end of my senior year in high school I was pretty good, but I wasn’t a super player and it was clear I would not major in music nor would I become a music professional. But I did have an interest in continuing to play in college. My high school band, Iolani School, was very distinguished and probably the best in the State of Hawaii at the time. We ended the school year with a tour encompassing performances in Fiji, Australia (Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne) and New Zealand (Wellington, Christchurch, Rotorua, Aukland). We also had a trip two years previously in Japan where we played a concert at Expo ’70 in Osaka and a concert in Tokyo at the roof garden of the Mitsukoshi Department Store.
I resolved to keep my playing ability up and took private lessons during the summer prior to going away to college at MIT. I got my introduction to warmup routines, exercises, solos, duets and etudes in Arban’s book (I still use the Arban’s book which I acquired at that time). I was in my best trumpet playing condition ever going into college in Fall 1972.
When I got to Cambridge, MA and the MIT campus, I found out the details of the auditions for the MIT Jazz Ensemble. From what I read, you didn’t need to be able to improvise but you would learn. There were two groups – the first band had the better players. I auditioned for one of the two openings for trumpet in the second band. I don’t remember exactly how many of us there were trying out, maybe about five. Two of the trumpeters were very good and clearly better than me. I got a call from the director that I was the alternate (3rd in the audition) so if either of the other two players decided not to join, I would be in. Needless to say, both of them joined the group. Had I gotten into the group I might have played from that point continuously to now. Or maybe I would have stopped at another time.
As an alternative, I joined the MIT Concert Band which didn’t require an audition. It only rehearsed weekly on Wednesday evenings. Rather than the traditional concert band repertoire, the director leaned more toward more modern works that were written by local composers for the band. I slowly lost interest in the music we were performing and slowly practiced less outside of rehearsal. My abilities declined as well and I never did go back to audition for the jazz band after my first try. As I got busier with other things, band and trumpet playing kept being pushed back on my priorities. After my sophomore year, I stopped playing with the band. They did call me back because they needed more trumpeters for a concert when I was a junior, but after that I was done.
I had a brief comeback about 10 years later – more about this stint with the Pleasantville Volunteer Fire Department Band in a later post.
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