After 24 years of trials and tribulations on the trombone, accomplishments and setbacks, from being a member of Frank Lacy's Septet and the Josh Evans Big Band to recordings that featured the great Gary Bartz, to losing four years on the horn due to illness, I can honestly say that I've seen a lot at the ripe old age of 32. It wasn't until teachers like Steve Davis showed me discipline and understanding that I found my sound and sharpened my skills.
Not all great players are great...
After 24 years of trials and tribulations on the trombone, accomplishments and setbacks, from being a member of Frank Lacy's Septet and the Josh Evans Big Band to recordings that featured the great Gary Bartz, to losing four years on the horn due to illness, I can honestly say that I've seen a lot at the ripe old age of 32. It wasn't until teachers like Steve Davis showed me discipline and understanding that I found my sound and sharpened my skills.
Not all great players are great teachers. Just because they know what they're doing, doesn't mean they can communicate it to you. I'm no prodigy; many years of failure taught me how to refine my craft and, ultimately, teach myself. I struggled with breathing, embouchure, articulation and sound well into college, only to emerge at 21 with abilities even my mentors didn't understand. Suffering from vocal cord dysfunction at age 22 made me have to do it all over again, re-emerging four years later at NYC venues like the Blue Note, Smalls Jazz Club, Jazz at Lincoln Center (Dizzy's), the Jazz Standard and more.
Students of all ages need honest, patient support, consistency, good habits, and comprehension. It is not enough to tell you what you don't understand. Everything we do in music, from warming up, breathing, and articulation, to setting the embouchure, to playing a note, to etudes and pieces, to tunes and solos or making beats and jamming, requires us to reconstruct each element we THINK we know from the ground up. Once we examine and hear ourselves for what we are doing, then we must apply consistent, efficient techniques for consistent results. While we are all at the mercy of the instrument to varying degrees, we can reduce the unpredictability by deconstructing our habits, building better ones, and doing it all while chasing YOUR goals as musicians and artists, not the dogma of inflexible demagogues. A lesson isn't a lecture, it's a conversation. I'm excited to work with students of all levels on their terms to help them reach their goals.
