Why does Watrous get such a bad rap on this site?

[Doug Elliott]

Well his technical ability to play the instrument IS totally astounding.

[nateaff]

Bill Watrous was maybe one of the cleverest and most technically capable trombonists ever, but his sound is not what any teacher anywhere teaches as the "correct" sound.

That being said, no basketball coach would ever teach a kid to shoot Reggie Miller's ugly jump shot and no baseball coach would ever teach Kevin Youkilis' ugly swing.

Just because he doesn't sound the way any of our teachers tell us we should sound doesn't mean it's wrong.

[Doug Elliott]

"his sound is not what any teacher anywhere teaches as the "correct" sound" ???
Hmmm
Sounds good and correct to me.

[nateaff]

I agree completely, and I love it. I only meant to say that most of end up being steered into a particular direction of what a trombone is "supposed" to sound like (usually what our teachers sound like) - and positively nobody plays like Bill Watrous. He's one of one. To me that's part of why he's as great as he is.

[Doug Elliott]

And since you brought up Reggie Miller...
His brother Saul was an absolutely fantastic jazz tenor sax player in the Airmen of Note, when I was in.

[ricksonntag]

This has been a very interesting thread to read. Bill Watrous was an amazing talent. Even though I am a trumpet player, I bought his then-new Manhattan Wildlife Refuge album at a very impressionable age, and I just could not stop playing it. I saw him live once at St. Mary's College in the mid-70s. I first heard him in the car on Felix Grant's "Album Sound" show on the radio, and immediately went to the nearest record store to buy it. It's hard to believe that we're at the 50th anniversary of its release, although the electronics and mix on the album do sound a little bit dated. I have both his Columbia releases and Reflections and some other things that he did with Patrick Williams. I'll have to pull them out and see how they have aged.

Fourth Floor Walkup came up in my car on shuffle play the other night. I hadn't heard it for over 20 years, and I mentioned to my wife that he could be a somewhat controversial figure. I shared with her a few stories of things I had heard from music insiders when I was in high school, college, and grad school (stomping out of gigs because they asked him to play forte, etc.), and that got me curious about how he is now remembered so I did some searching when I got home. That's how I found this discussion.

I will share one story that sums up how young trombone players in the 70s and 80s absolutely worshiped him, and how others, well, not so much. I share this slightly off-color story with respect, because I think it encapsulates both the good (which could be amazingly good) and the not-so-good (which I truly hope he grew out of later in life):

I played lead trumpet in the Princeton University Jazz Band in the early '80s. The band was totally student-run, so the students called the shots. The University gave us funding to hire a Musical Director for educational benefit and adult supervision and we had a really good one. I won't name names, but he was a well regarded session drummer and educator in NYC (as well as a Marine veteran from President's Own). Every year we voted on a guest soloist for our spring concert, and every year it was the same story: Our M.D. told us that if we hired Bill Watrous he would quit on the spot. And every year Watrous would get exactly four votes - the entire trombone section. The rest of us had to collude ahead of time to make sure we didn't split our votes and allow Watrous to win. We had a really good M.D. and we didn't want to lose him. One year the trumpets got our way and we got Randy Brecker. But we never got Bill Watrous. It would have been fun to have done that, especially the year after our M.D. stepped down (for other personal reasons).

[Digidog]

Wow! So Watrous gets a bad rap here?

I must immediately check that out; who'd wanna miss a bad rap?

.....though I think that too many people, too often, conflate opinions with advice and tell others to stay off that which they themselves do not like; telling themselves that they have provided advice when, in fact, they are unable to sort and formulate their impressions and how those impressions affect them emotionally.

A behaviour which I consider childish; immature and shallow without perspective.

[LetItSlide]

Bill Watrous did a lot of amazing playing. That’s indisputable. For just plain beautiful trombone playing, I have yet to hear anyone surpass Urbie. One listen to “Let’s Face The Music And Dance,” and maybe you’ll agree. Bill was a fan of that playing. How can any trombonist not be?

[LetItSlide]

I just listened to Love Walked In from that album. That’s the kind of playing I’m talking about.

[BrianJohnston]

I never heard anyone talk bad about him on TC. BW has arguably the greatest tone of any jazz trombonist… truly a king of ballads.