Oregon Voices: Talegate: A Trombone Tableau

Abstract

_OREGON VOICES Talegate A TromboneTableau byJohn Wendeborn TAILGATE:Back endof wagon in New Orleanswith bandplayingand trombonist pointing horn over tailgate; New Orleans style of jazz trombone TALEGATE: Trombonist who becomes writer IT'S FALL 1944. I'm fourteen years old and looking for themusic room at Washington High School, carrying the tarnished trumpet I'd been trying to play for a year while taking about a dozen lessons.Within a week, the trumpet's gone and I'm sitting at the back of the room with a tuba on my lap. Band director Arlon O. Bogard didn't need a dysfunctional trumpet player but figured with some work his open tuba chair would be the right thing forme. Itdidn't take long to figure out the tuba was not right, either. The next fall,with the arrival of a sophomore who could play tuba and sousaphone coupled with a need fora trombone player putMr. Bogard on my case again. He wasn't willing to dismiss me completely; my freshman year had been okay, and he needed to fill out theband. iN"W5t V.1.^J including several musicians, and we would march and play ? even getting the police to block a lane of trafficas we marched to Twenty-eighth and then on to the Blue Goose Tavern on Ankeny. A couple of years later, the march began atClaudia son Southeast Thirtieth and Hawthorne. By then, the growing platoon approached fortyguys,most of them veterans and many wearing ill-fitting uniforms. The music was handled by nearly a dozen players aswe marched up Hawthorne toThirty-seventh Avenue, again with police support, toNick's Coney Island. That lasted two years and was defi nitely a fun-loving experience. Wendeborn, A Trombone Tableau 115 ALREADY IMMERSED inthejazz community, I leftcab driving in 1956. I had not played anywhere near full time for the prior two years, but I soon found Portland's jazz clubs and was a frequent visitor toplaces such as the Chicken Coop and the Shadows. Both were restaurants, and theCoop, off Northeast Sandy Boulevard at Twenty-fourth, was where Portland's popular pianist Sid Porter played. The Shadows, at Northeast Twenty-first, off Sandy, was prettymuch a burger and-fries outlet with a trio playing weekends. Idid have a quartet fora few weekends at theHollywood area club Carmen s but lost that gig when the well-known Hamiltones took over. Jam sessions put me in contact with other jazz musicians, including Lynn Teadtke, who would soon be the leading Dixieland/traditional jazz trumpet in town. Lynn and I found ways to occasionally play in the after noon, which gained me some status. He joined Monty Ballou s traditional jazz band and became a star.Ballou ran thepopular Diamond Horseshoe Club on the second floor of a building at Southwest Broadway andWashington, adjacent towhat was then the Liberty Theater. Through Lynn, I got to sit in a couple of times. Itwas about 1955when I began stagingwhat we called Young JazzAu diences, a take-offon the symphonic type events called Young Audiences, which catered tohigh school audiences and musicians. With Wes Spellman, pianist Al Hood, and others,we staged several concerts, including shows at Grant, Madison, and Franklin high schools. The assemblies we played always ended with a fewhigh school ers joining us toplay; years later many of them had become established jazz players in town. In the late 1950s, a popular two trombone sound by recording artists Kai Winding and J.J.Johnson led to the S&W Quintet (Spellman & Wendeborn). Trumpeter Wes Spell man doubled on the used Reynolds valve trombone Ihad bought to enable us to get the J.J. and Kai sound. I had also discovered a wizard of the valve trombone, Bob Brookmeyer, andwhen Wes said he could play the valve, too, the S&W sound was born. Tenor sax man Carl Smith and his soon-to-be-wife Patti Hart, a jazz singer whose popularity was rising rapidly, regularly gathered with us at a small house on Southeast Stark across from the Lone Fir Cemetery. Those afternoons were more jam sessions than rehearsal, but we had tohave a set listof songs to play. Carl later formed his Natural Gas Company...