My father was a rat bastard, but he paid for my trombone lessons, drove me to band/orchestra practice, and scoured the record stores to find me albums featuring trombonists. One day, he came home with two albums by a guy named Urbie Green. Those records immediately changed my life. I had never heard a trombone sound that lush and warm and romantic, and I had never heard anyone with such facility on this difficult instrument. Urbie immediately became my favorite trombonist. I spent endless hours trying to play along with his records.
When I was 12, my dad took me to hear a big band led by jazz trombonist Si Zenter. On a break I went up to Si to talk to him, but I could only think of two questions to ask him: "Do you know Urbie Green?" and "What's he like?" Si also had a young section trombonist touring with him named Billy Watrous. I ignored him. I had no interest in mere sidemen. At that point, I cared only about Urbie Green. Si Zenter might as well have been a janitor for all I cared. And sideman Billy Watrous was nonexistent to me.
Years later, when I was a young adult and naively (and very wrongly) believed that I was hot stuff on the trombone, a friend brought over an album called the Manhattan Wildlife Refuge, featuring that old sideman Bill Watrous. This was the second album to change my life. On that album was a tune called Fourth Floor Walkup. (Coincidentally, when I moved to New York I lived in a fourth floor walkup in the wildest part of Manhattan, but that's another story.)
Fourth Floor Walkup featured a blazing cadenza by Bill Watrous. I say cadenza, but really it was something other-worldly, to me. It was a technical demonstration on the trombone the likes of which I had never even dreamed was possible. And in the 1970s, it was something that had never been recorded before. It was like stepping out of Plato's notorious cave, and being blinded by the sun, hearing what this man could do with a six-foot length of brass pipe.
I locked myself in my bedroom and listened to that tune 20 times in a row, and when I was done I knew my life was about to change again. There was no going forward with the trombone the way I had been. I had woken up to the fact that I was light years away from being competitive, and I knew I had to make a choice: either I could quit and throw my trombone in the ocean and find something else to do, or I could lock myself in the practice room for the next ten years and devote my every waking moment to woodshedding the utterly impossible things I had heard on that cut. It was inspiring, but it was also soul crushing.
After coming very close the ocean thing, I eventually opted for the woodshed. I practiced eight hours a day. And that eventually led me to Los Angeles, and an effort to become a professional trombonist.
To my eternal regret, I never played with Urbie Green. But in the late 1970s I did meet Bill Watrous. I was new to L.A. and trying to become a musician. One day, Ted Nash -- son of another trombone role model, Dick Nash -- called me and said, "Can you sub in this fusion band tonight? We have a gig at a club on Sunset, and I need a trombone right now. There's no money. It's a freebie." My philosophy at the time was to play anywhere and everywhere I could, so I reluctantly jumped in my car and sight read a very difficult book on the gig.
After an hour we took a break, and this guy comes up to me and introduces himself to me as Bill Watrous. He tells me he just got divorced and moved from New York to L.A., and he was starting a west coast version of his big band, which he was planning to call Refuge West. His band's first rehearsal was coming up at C&D Music in Sepulveda. Al Vizzutti and Phil Teele were going to be there. He said he liked my playing and asked if I wanted to come play in the rehearsal. Of course, I said yes. That was the beginning of 15 years of playing with Watrous, both occasionally in his big band and on a variety of other gigs. He was kind enough to help get me on many recording sessions, and one weekly comedy TV show that featured a live band.
Eventually, Bill and I became friends, and I was able to observe his phenomenal playing up close for over a decade, at a time when he was the best trombonist on earth and was in his absolute prime. For a young trombonist like me, it was an education in some very good and a couple not so good ways. I came to have some thoughts about Urbie and Billy. These are some of them:
Urbie and Bill were essentially two iterations of the same trombone player. Urbie was a generation ahead of Bill, and Urbie was Bill's early role model. Urbie was also my first trombone role model, and Billy was my second.
As people, Urbie and Bill were polar opposites. Urbie was quiet, reserved, and shy, but secretly sported a subversive little mean streak that cut many a lesser player. Bill, OTOH, was an extrovert, with a big heart and a larger than life personality. People fell into two categories with Bill. He either loved you or he hated you, with no in-between. For Urbie, playing was spiritual. For Bill, it was a competitive athletic event. And yet, these polar opposite personalities were the same trombone player on the inside.
They both shared a single embouchure, and it is the best embouchure I've ever seen. They placed the mouthpiece to their lips, and it never moved. They had a single "set" no matter the range or what they were playing. Their embouchure was "upper dominant," meaning that more of their upper lip was in the mouthpiece and the lower served as their foundation. Both of them used only enough pressure on the mouthpiece to keep a seal, and no more. Neither of them liked to play loud. They would "fill up the horn," but never overblow it, and the preference of both was to play no louder than a mezzo forte. "Any idiot can play loud," Watrous would say. "And destroy their chops."
Urbie and Bill shared a trait that was amazing to me: apparent effortlessness. No matter what they were playing -- no matter how high or low, fast or slow, loud or soft -- their embouchure never moved or changed. And they always looked completely relaxed. Same with their facial expressions. You couldn't even see them working. All the effort happened inside the mouthpiece, and none of it showed on the outside. For all appearances they could have been waiting for a bus rather than playing extremely difficult material on the trombone.
Urbie and Bill, along with Dick Nash and Tommy Dorsey, were my role models for playing ballads on the trombone. Buttery smooth and vocal-like, with long phrases, soft articulations, and a delicate touch, I judged my own ballad playing by how closely I could approximate theirs.
Both men mastered the entire instrument, from the very lowest possible notes, to the very highest, with soft-but-focused tones and lightning fast technique/facility. All those things awed and inspired me, and I did my best to emulate those things in my own playing.
Of course I had other trombonists who inspired me, a great many from Emery Remington to Ralph Saur to Roy Main to Dick Nash to Frank Rosolino, but Urbie and Bill occupied the most space in my soul, and still do. I never became the player those guys were. And as I'm rapidly approaching old age and have only recently started playing again after a long break, I know I will never will. But to this day, every time I pick up a trombone and play commercial or jazz music, the souls of Urbie Green and Bill Watrous come out the end of my bell, however attenuated their remnants may be as filtered through my feeble and flawed efforts.
I apologize for this self-indulgent post and my trip in the way back machine. Please forgive me. Did anyone here ever play with Urbie? If so, I will be forever envious of you.
