Playing the trumpet traumatized me. When I was 10, someone amidst the annually gathered assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins asked me which instrument I wanted to learn. Most everyone on my father’s side of the family plays something, and it was time for me to choose. I pointed at the wall and said, “Trumpet.” Being in the business of renting musical instruments to middle- and high-school students, my grandfather plucked a trumpet off the wall and handed it to me.
I see the scene only dimly now, but I still can feel the farting squeals and borborygmic bleating from the trumpet buzzing against my lips–and the uproarious laughter of everyone assembled. Do other music writers blame their attraction to specific instruments on a transforming (or traumatic) experience?
That day I left without a trumpet. By giving up too soon, I had failed an important test. Yet my admiration for trumpeters increased mightily. After infatuations with Chuck Mangione and Maynard Ferguson (ah, the tackiness of pre-adolescent taste!), I eventually graduated to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and then Kenny Dorham, Axel Dörner, Greg Kelley, Don Ellis, and Arturo Sandoval.
A protégé of Dizzy Gillespie, the Cuban-born Sandoval first attracted attention in the late 1970s with his superb, sky-punching stratospheric solos for Irakere, a Latin jazz group that combined the horn-driven funk of Earth, Wind & Fire with the ambitious arrangements of Weather Report. Today, Sandoval still squalls out the high notes and smolders on ballads and mid-tempo numbers. Don’t miss this master trumpeter. CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI
Arturo Sandoval and his quintet perform Thurs July 22 through Sun July 25. Sets start at 8 pm and 10:15 pm, except for Sun when sets start at 6:30 pm and 8:45 pm (Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729), $22.50/$24.50.
