The 4 th NYBCFS featured a lecture/ demonstration of Jazz Improvisation by the renowned Rich Matteson as well as Don Butterfield's tuba artistry, which honored the incomparable Joe Tarto . On page 61 of the Journal you can see a photo I took of a live performance of Don's tuba trio playing his cutting-edge composition Sonority Study for Three Tubas in the fabled studios of WQXR with Sam Pilafian and Eric Berman . Believe me, those three and their instruments in that tiny studio barely left room to turn around!
 
The 1977 Conference featured Don Butterfield with the Princeton University Symphonic Band, David Winograd with the Canterbury Brass Quintet, Harvey Phillips and James F. Burke's Concert Band. Page 64 shows my photo coverage of Don 's Octubafes t at Montclair State College with nice close-ups of Dick Robinson playing Hindemith 's Sonata for Tuba; Pat Landolfi , principal tuba of the New Jersey Symphony, Brian Nalepka and his banjo band; Bert Strompf and Tequila Mockingbird ; Howard Hovey, Karl Megules, Richard Chiemengo and the Garden State Tuba Ensemble playing new music such as Rayburn Wright's Undercurrents for seven tubas, two percussion and flute and Don Butterfield's Evocation for four tubas, which explored harmonic structures and inner voicings that had not yet become part of the tuba literature vocabulary.
 
Those who attended the 1977 NYBCFS were also given tickets to the Empire Brass Quintet's performance at Avery Fisher Hall, which featured Sam Pilafian .
 
The 7th Conference Journal has a half page photo of a unique recording session that showcased many of the best symphonic players of the era. It combined the brass sections of three of the finest orchestras in America. Present were Ronald Bishop with a quintet from the Cleveland Orchestra, Abe Torchinsky and most of the brass of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Arnold Jacobs with the first and second chair players from the Chicago Symphony. There is also a fascinating interview by Charles Colin with Andy Kazdin who produced the album of Gabrieli 's antiphonal music for two and three brass choirs for Columbia records. Besides the obvious and formidable task of coordinating the busy schedules of the nineteen master musicians, Kasdin admitted that another big concern was the possibility of conflicting egos, but that never became a problem. The tubists were especially happy to see each other because both Torchinsky and Bishop had studied with Jacobs and had not seen each other for years.
 
This Journal also includes a long, fascinating excerpt from Season With Solti by William Furlong about Mr. Jacobs . He certainly was a many-faceted personality. He appeared as a child actor in a silent film with Mary Pickford and played both trumpet and trombone before being given a tuba by his Santa Monica junior high school bandmaster. When he was only fifteen he won a scholarship to the famed Curtis Institute and his family moved to Philadelphia so he could continue his studies, but he was reprimanded for doing club dates on both smaller brasses to earn spending money and convinced to specialize on the big horn by the faculty. He took their advice but continued to do Dixieland dates on the side that taught him how differently the same notes could be interpreted, depending on their context. When the string bass began to replace the tuba as the primary jazz band foundation, around 1932, he taught himself to play well enough to hold a staff position at CBS in Chicago.
 
It also almost led him into other career choices as a vocalist and radio announcer. Curtis even offered him a second scholarship in vocal studies! The article also explores Arnold's research into human anatomy, physiology, and respiration and explains why tuba players are generally large, overweight people! They may not start out that way but the nature of the instrument predetermines the outcome. Required reading for all!
 
This Journal also includes a historically interesting article by Hope Stoddard that originally appeared in a 1950 International Musician : "The Tuba and Its Players in Our Bands and Orchestras." It includes twenty-two photos of some of the legendary players mentioned above. You can not only see what they looked like in their prime, but also try to identify the many styles and makes of instruments that they played. Besides Bill Bell, Joe Novotny, and Abe Torchinsky you'll see J.E. McAllister (Indianapolis Symphony), Louis Chassagne (Dallas Symphony), Bruce Holcomb (Vancouver Symphony), J.E. Booth (Minneapolis Symphony), Samuel Green (Cincinnati Symphony), Robert Ingram (Los Angeles Philharmonic), Virgil Ester (Oklahoma Symphony), Bill Montieth (Buffalo Philharmonic), Fred Exner (New Orleans Symphony), Louis Pirko (National Symphony), Kilton Vinal-Smith (Boston Symphony), Clyde Bachand (Kansas City Symphony), Vaughn Abbey (Seattle Symphony), Gaetano Berardenelli (Portland Symphony), William Rose Houston Symphony), Adolf Moser (Cleveland Orchestra). and John Manuti (Metropolitan Opera).
 
Of course some of these fine players are long gone now, as are some of the orchestras they played with, but your teacher may have studied with one of them and so the legacy of great musicianship is passed along to the next generation. Besides the photos, this well-researched article discusses the different kinds of tubas in current use, their ranges, and personal anecdotes about what attracted these players to the instrument in their youth.
 
These Conference Journals are a great resource for educational material of all kinds. Articles cover topics ranging from dental problems to warm-up routines to proper preparation for a job audition. Many back issues are still available, free of charge from Colin Publications , 315 West 53 rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10019. Just make a donation to the NYBC Scholarship Fund for each copy you want. While I'm at it, I might as well mention my own journal-sized opus called CHOPS , which contains 480 headshots of brass players, also published by Colin , that clearly shows their embouchures. You're bound to find many of your favorites among them. It is also free with a donation to the NYBCFS.

Bill Spilka, a native New Yorker, has been a professional trombonist & bassist since 1945. He has been on the road with the Ralph Flanagan band and has played venues ranging from Burlesque to the Newport & JVC Jazz Festivals in Newport and New York, as well as others in France and Switzerland; Jimmy Ryan’s, West End Café, The Cajun, Red Garter and Blue Note jazz clubs in New York and Europe; Casinos in Monaco, Las Vegas and Atlantic City; for Lester Lanin, Steven Scott, and other major Society offices; and has led his own Rowdy Rooters, the Official Band of the New York Rangers, for over forty years. Other highlights of his musical career include playing with Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong; at the wedding of Grace Kelly and Prince Ranier; sidelining a jam session in an Independent film and a Trump Casino commercial; a recent Grammy-nominated Big Band recording; the 100th Anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge, serving as Musical Director for the opening of the South Street Seaport and most recently, documenting a two-week, five state bus tour with the Stan Kenton Alumni Band.
 
He joined the photography staff of Metronome magazine in 1955 and has shot assignments for The New York Times, LIFE, The New Yorker, Jazz Times, Stereo Review, Columbia House, Time-LIFE Books and Ken Burns’ recent “Jazz” series on PBS. Bill has also been the Official Photographer for the New York Brass Conference since 1974. They sponsored publication of a large book of his photographs entitled “CHOPS” which shows the embouchures of 480 top brass players from around the world.
 
Bill was the East Coast and Jazz Editor for the International Trombone Association for eighteen years, writing a regular column as well as feature articles. He still contributes performance and record reviews to them as well as to The Brass Player, Jersey Jazz, The IAJRC and other publications. As a free-lance artist and designer he has produced several album covers for Charles Mingus’ Debut and Harry Lim’s Famous Door labels and drawn covers for recent books on Lee Morgan and Clifford Brown.
 
After graduating from Cooper Union, Bill earned his B.S. and M.A. degrees in Education from New York University as well as sixty credits toward his Doctorate while teaching Studio Art, Photography, Art History and Calligraphy at George Washington High School in New York City. He was awarded a Guggenheim Teacher Exchange Fellowship to England and also taught Art History at the American College in Paris.
 
In 1987, after thirty years in the classroom, he retired when he was awarded a Jazz Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to continue a project that he had begun twenty years earlier, that of documenting on videotape the lives and performances of the sidemen and women who made up the big jazz-oriented dance bands of the “Golden Age” – 1935-45 – a group of very talented musicians who have been largely neglected in previous research.

©2004 International Tuba Euphonium Association