Larry Gianni

Hello,

First to answer WFUnix's question, what John (and his staff) is doing with the Tulsa Calicchio's is that he is simply doing what Dominic started and doing it RIGHT. Nothing has been changed from the way Dominick made the instrument, including leadpipe and bells, since the late 50’s (and some techniques date back to the Hollywood Calicchio tradition beginning in 1947), including the same painstaking methods.

John's goal was to bring back the “Dominick “back to the Calicchio line.
The Tulsa shop uses the same leadpipe mandrel’s (Dominick eventually developed 10 leadpipe designs by the mid 60’s) developed by Dominick when he brought company from New York to Hollywood in 1947, the same bell mandrill’s made and developed by Dominick, same valve casing design, valve porting design, valve guide design, bell and leadpipe bracing design, tuning slide design, metal alloys used, etc that Dominick and his crew used until his death in 1979.

All the leadpipe and bell mandrel are all original. They have never been copied or altered in any manner .The 1s bell made today in Tulsa is made from the very same bell mandrel that Chuck Findley’s was made in 1968 ( including the labor intensive technique ) or the #3 bell is the drawn from the same mandrel Maynard Ferguson's large bore Calicchio was made from in 1954.

You can go right down the line;

Brisbois, Gozzo, Rasey, Audino, Hey, Grant, Davis, Findley, Ferguson, Coppola, Harner, Biviano, Maxwell, Ferguson, Hubinon, Johnson, Miyashiro, Schmidt, Szabo,Thomas, Trisari, Trigg etc. . . .

the leadpipes and bells that were made for the trumpets these guys and the other Calicchio " greats " used to make so much great and demanding music and developed their sensation careers were made off the same exact , one of a kind , never altered , leadpipe and bell mandrels that Chops1,Vesuehume, Calicchioman, Rhdoc, Kenne60 , CDJazztrpt , gphorn, Jokien, Dyson, Balt58, Lars, Mark935 , Jazzman , Urquhart, ISsmith606, etc. are now playing on. Sort of a “mindblower “isn’t it.

Again, I don’t believe any other line of trumpets can boost;

1) of such a line-up of trumpet “elites “that play Calicchio trumpets on as high professional level

2) plus then add the undesputable statement that every #1, 1s, 2 and #3 bell ever made , produced and eventually mounted and every # 3,2,7,9 etc leadpipe ever drawn ,produced and played are from the same original , one of a kind, unaltered , 50 plus year old, hand designed leadpipe and bell mandrill made and used by the founder of the line. Think about it.

Even the machinery used by Dominick in his original Hollywood shop is still in use today to draw, bend and cut the bells and leadpipe some 50 plus years later.

So to put it simply, what John and crew is doing is bringing back to the " trumpet manufactering " table is a very sincere goal that no Calicchio leave his shop (sometimes to the determent of his own pocketbook, just ask Bart - " Your killing me, John !!!! ") until the utmost quality, care, consistency, and exacting tolerances and standards have been met and the respect due Mr. Dominick Calicchio and his tradition have been given

Larry

More on all this later