Manny Laureano

A bit of cutting and pasting and... voila!


I'm Manny Laureano but my given name is Manuel. No middle name. I was named after my godfather, Manuel Diaz. My folks are from Puerto Rico and they moved here in 1948 after the death of my sister whom I never knew as I was born in 1955.

I loved to sing when I was in school and the trumpet became my voice in Junior High School (for you on the other side of the Atlantic, that begins in 7th grade in NYC where I was born). After a week of buzzing on the mouthpiece without a horn to play I started and loved it because it was something that I could do. I was pretty geeky but not about anything important. Music became that important thing.

A gentleman named David Rosenthal gave me a scholarship on behalf of the NYC public school system to study with Jimmy Smith, then of the NY Philharmonic. Jimmy was great. He let me bring in anything I wanted for a whole year; band music, solos, songbooks. He let that be the way until he told me to go get an Arban book, my first method. He eventually changed my mouthpiece to a 2 1/2 C from the 7C I was playing. He also was the one who went, along with my dad, to help us pick out my first bach Bb. Serial # 54230. Has anyone seen that horn? What an idiot... never should have sold that. My first public solo was "A Trumpeter's Lullaby" by Leroy Anderson.

I auditioned for the High School of Music and Art and it was great to be amongst all those other geeks playing trumpet. There, I met two very important people, Sidney Baker (nee Beckerman), formerly of the Chicago Symphony, and Jack Laumer who was my first link to Vacchiano as he was a student of his. Sid Baker taught me the importance of good work habits and Jack Laumer informed me that Vacchiano was NOT going to teach me how to play like Rafael Mendez, a "disappointment" at that point in my life. I just couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want to play like Mendez!


The time when I took up the trumpet was a wonderful time in that there was so much for me to listen to evereywhere. Herb Alpert was huge and could be hear on commercials, radio, and TV. Al Hirt was present with his own TV show and the trumpeter for the Green Hornet TV show. Rafael Mendez was a constant on Spanish Radio because they used his "Vie en Rose" for a commercial that played several times a day but I didn't know who it was as a little boy. The New York Philharmonic was on TV every few months on Sunday afternoons, The Boston Pops was on Saturday nights on PBS.

When I was given the trumpet as my instrument to play in Junior High School, I was first given only a mouthpiece which I had to buy. It was an "Artcraft" 7C. I took it home and started buzzing it. That wasn't enough, so, I put a straw in the stem and pretended to play trumpet. It wasn't until I taped a little funnel to the end that I was happy. When I finally received the instrument I was able to play a true sound and not what I was hearing around me. I highly recommend that for any kid that has never played. You'll find out if he/she has an ear before they ever touch the horn.

At Music and Art High School, it was wonderful to be surrounded by 1500 other geeks like myself that lived, breathed, and ate music. I learned so much between playing in the concert band, jazz band, school orchestra, and All-City High School Orchestra. My lessons with Jimmy Smith were the foundation for what I was to accomplish later in life. Jimmy was such a gentle soul. He played 4th and Utility for the Philharmonic and made it his mission to prepare me for Vacchiano at the "Yard". I was a very naive student, having no background in classical music save for whatever I learned with him and at school.

If there's one person who deserves ackowledgement for making me the player I am today it's someone who is retiring from the LA Philharmonic and formerly of the Baltimore Symphony. Rob Roy McGregor was a profound influence on my playing before I started studying with Vacchiano and served as a fabulous summer "Warm-up" to a new kind of teaching. Rob taught me how to take a proper breath and explained why. He taught me a way to tongue that was clear yet not overloaded with pressure. He taught me to play the Hindemith Sonate and why it was such an important piece philosophically. In short, he expanded my thinking about playing and was the first teacher I had that I could hear play solos, play in the orchestra, and play chamber music on almost a daily basis at camp. He helped me "grow up". As he now welcomes retirement after so many years of serving music I'm happy to say how glad I am that he was a part of my musical life.

The other player I haven't written so much about is Mel Broiles.

Mel was the frosting on the cake that really had a tremendous influence on who I became. Mel was an individual; brash, determined, and not at all afraid to make his musical statement his way. We sight-read every lesson, as I did with Vacchiano. He explained transposition to me in a way that made more sense to me which is why Vacchiano sent me to Mel. I loved hearing him play! We would have our lessons in the basement of the Met in a room that rang forever. Mel told me that he wanted to inflate the students opinion of his sound so that when they left they would hear that sound ringing in their heads and try to capture it away from that environ. With me, it worked, I don't know about anybody else. I left those lessons more in love with the sound of the trumpet than the last. We played studies from St.Jacome, Sachse, Peretti, Arban, and Caffarelli. Lots of transposition! He was the perfect adjunct to Vacchiano as he loosened up some of the rules that Vacchiano wouldn't let me get away with but I learned how to keep the two apart. It made me a more versatile and sensitive musician playing for those two different musicians. Mel has had his detractors but that's the risk you take in being an individual and going against the flow. I loved the guy. He also gave me tickets to my first opera, Manon Lescaut by Puccini.

ML