[Dixielandjazz] Trombone

[Dick Miller]

heppkat at juno.com writes:
>Don Ingle mentioned Bob Enavolson on Trombone. He is one of the
>greatest!!! He has a trombone that has valves but also a slide.
>He could lock the slide and play valve Tb, unlock it and do great smears.

That's called a Holton Superbone, and was developed in consultation with
Maynard Ferguson. The trombonist with the Black Swan Classic Jazz Band,
Lew Chapman, plays one, and does a marvelous job of it. He even plays the
valves and slide in combination to enable easier fingerings and playing in
strange keys (key of B? no problem: push down 2nd valve, play in C).

He let me try it once, and I found it to be a little stuffy (although
you'd never know it to hear him play). Of course, I'm judging it by ease
of blowing of a big-bore slide Holton with F attachment, and a Bach
marching trombone (my two usual horns, and both of which blow very
freely). Like any compromise, it sub-optimizes each of the individual
components in order to achieve the synthesis.

--Dick Miller