| I am not a bum, I'm a jerk. I once had wealth, power,
and the love of a beautiful woman. Now I only have two things. My
friends and... uh... my trumpet. Huh? My story? O.k. It was never
for easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the
days sitting on the porch with my family singing and dancing,
down in Mississippi.
Well, HEY!!! You said have fun with it!!!
Ok, ok....
I am Chuck Willard, born in Detroit, MI in 1952. I was the first boy in the family after four girls. I was follow by another girl and two more boys. I guess THAT'S the other thing my dad did well! My father was a prominant trumpet player. I started playing trumpet at age seven. My first teacher was Edwin (Gladney) Head, a soloist with Leonard B. Smith's Detroit Concert Band. He was a great player and teacher. We really didn't have the money for private lessons when I was growing up. I learned by listening to my dad. He was not a teacher, but I always brought music home from school and he always play it. I listened VERY well. My dad very frequently took me on gigs with him from the time I was about ten or so. I was fortunate to be able to listen to and meet some of the best muscians to come through Detroit.
I was not a natural on the trumpet, but in a big family, always competing for my dad's attention, I used the trumpet as my stepping stone to him. I worked at it and as a result always played first chair. In school as well as in the district, all-city and all-state honors bands.
I auditioned for, and went to the prestigious Cass Tech High School in Detroit. It was, through most of the 1900's one of the best schools in the U.S. It rivaled The School Of The Performing Arts in New York. I studied trumpet with Harold Arnoldi there. My last year of high school my dad took me out of Cass and had me go to a different school as Cass did not offer any jazz or big band music.
I won scholarships to Interlochen MI and to the University of Michigan as a music major, trumpet performance . (and Dr. Revelli was SCARY!)
I started playing professionally at age sixteen, and with all of my dad's contacts I got a lot of jobs.
My first pro job was a disaster! I get to the gig and the keyboard guy says "You can read, right?" I said "Anything you have."
Well that wasn't quite true, I could read but not transpose! He was one unhappy camper! A four piece gig, piano, trumpet, bass and drums and I could not transpose. This was 1968, there were not transposing keyboards then!
We had a long night.
You better belive that in two weeks time I was the world's best C to Bb reader in the world. Never wanted to let my dad down again, or cause HIM to look bad.
I had the pleasure and ordeal of working two summers on a local cruise ship, the Bob-Lo boat Columbia. I played with my dad, Chuck Willard, drummer Joe Vitale (the drummer on the Lone Ranger's theme song) and the famous Chuck Peterson. I studied hard with Chuck those two years. Chuck was a trumpeter with Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. He did the famous "Trumpet Duel" with Ziggy Elmann on TD's "Well Git It".
If you haven't heard THAT one, You should! Chuck was one of the finest pure trumpet players I ever heard. What a player!!
The first thing he ever said to me (and I did not know who he was) was "So you're Chuck Willard's kid. Play me a G" I took my trusty new Yamaha YTR 735 and played a G. He said "Not that #*&*%!! G, this one!!" He grabs my horn with it's Martin 10 mouthpice and nails a high G! I just stood there and laughed. I never heard one of those six inches away from my nose, pointed right at me. He said "If you were my kid, you'd be the best #*&*%!! trumpet player in the world!!" Then he tried to make that happen.
More to follow.
-cw-
__________________
Chuck Willard
The Willard of Oz
"Don't be afraid to see what you see."
Ronald Reagan |