Chase Sanborn

As I write, I am closing in on five decades as a professional jazz trumpet player. Reflecting on a life in music, my thoughts go to my first important musical influence and two of the most difficult gigs out of the thousands I have played. As it happens, and appropriately so in this context, both center on my grandmother, Ruth Parlin Sanborn.

 

Music was an integral part of Grandma Ruth’s life, although she never to my knowledge pursued it outside of the home other than singing enthusiastically at church. My mother Peg Sanborn recalls the weekly phone calls from her mother-in-law asking Peggy if she was at that moment listening to the Metropolitan Opera broadcast on the radio. (The sheepish answer: no.)

 

Every Christmas, Grandma assembled a family orchestra. I don’t know how early the tradition began, but pictures of her young family show her at the grand piano—one of two side by side in the house!—along with Grandpa Howard and my father Howie on violin, joined by brothers Don and John on cello and flute. In later years, Howie took up the banjo. No Earl Scruggs was he, but it was an enjoyable mid-life pastime and added a new element to the family orchestra.

 

As the family expanded to include wives, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, each was expected to take part in the performance following Christmas dinner. Adults who had played an instrument at some point in their lives blew the dust off the cases; I remember Uncle Don’s cello bow had more horse hair flying free than contacting the strings. Children and non-musically gifted adults were assigned percussion instruments and the requisite jingle bells.

 

I, as the oldest grandchild, was the first to take up a real instrument, the trumpet. That was in the fifth grade. I can’t remember my early attempts at playing my trumpet with the family orchestra, but I basked in Grandma’s pride and praise, which never waned throughout my childhood and well into my professional career.

 

As a university student in Boston and in my first few years as a working musician in San Francisco, the annual Christmas ‘gig’ was a source of mild stress. The trumpet requires daily practice; even after decades of playing the horn, taking a single day off makes a perceptible difference. While home for the holidays, I sluffed off on my practice regimen so that by the time the big day rolled around, my chops (lips) were feeling rather rusty. This shouldn’t have mattered, given that for some in the orchestra Christmas was the only day they played their instrument, so the overall standard was not particularly high (I have tapes). I, however, as the budding professional musician, felt an obligation to deliver on a higher level.

 

The repertoire consisted of several books of Christmas carol arrangements. Grandma conducted the orchestra from the piano, going nearly non-stop from one tune to the next with her unique count off: “Ready…play!” The arrangements shifted the melody from one instrument to the next, but Grandma always wanted the trumpet to play the melody throughout. This stretched my ability to play by ear, even if that was what I was striving to do as a jazz musician. In later years, I made my university students stumble through Christmas carols at the end of the term—a humbling experience for them as it had been for me.

 

After working our way through ten or fifteen tunes, I would ask Grandma for a short break to allow my beleaguered lips to revive. At that point, the amateurs in the room would patiently wait for the ‘professional’ to be ready to play again. Fortunately, I had the old union rules gag to fall back on.

 

The other and more somber gig associated with Grandma Ruth was her memorial, held, appropriately, in the Tea House at Silver Bay. Near the end of the proceedings, I stationed myself on the hill above to play Taps. Most will be familiar with this traditional tune, played at funerals and at nightfall. As a bugler in the Boy Scouts, I played it many times. It is a simple melody, consisting of only four notes, however within that simplicity lies the difficulty. The notes are bare and sustained, with any flaw plain to hear. I’ve always had sympathy for military buglers who must stand at attention for long periods of time, sometimes in cold temperatures which are murder on a trumpet player’s chops. They then must lift the horn to their lips with no warmup and sound the call, while possibly the whole world silently observes, and, a trumpet player imagines, critiques.

 

In this case, the only witnesses were the attendees, but many musicians will likely agree that performing for family engenders its own kind of nerves. Also, as one might imagine, with a wind instrument like the trumpet, anything that interferes with the breath creates major problems. I’ve had to play gigs with a cough, forcing me to make a snap decision when to yank the mouthpiece off my face lest a spasmatic burst of air produce an unwelcome blast. Similarly, when one is fighting back tears it is difficult to maintain a steady flow of air. As I sounded the first notes, I could hear weeping from the hill below, and felt the choke in my throat. (Even as I write this, I find myself tearing up.) I fought back the welling emotion, cast my eyes toward the mountains across the lake, willing the sound to travel there.

 

In my recollection, I pulled it off and made it through to the final note without what brass players refer to as a ‘kack’. It’s possible that some listeners might have had a different impression, but I am counting on the fallibility of memory and I consider that gig to be one of my greatest successes. As a side note, when I got the news of my father’s passing, I once again played Taps. Alone in my basement, the performance was less fraught but no less emotional.

 

More than once, I’ve been asked what is the best thing about being a musician. My simplistic but honest reply is that you get to spend your days and nights in the company of musicians. That’s my comfort zone (boaters are a close second). One might also refer to Confucius who promised that we will never work a day in our life if we choose a job we love.

 

I can’t honestly say there is no work involved in making a living via an artistic pursuit, but there is satisfaction in the knowledge that a driving passion, one that made Grandma so proud, has sustained me, financially, emotionally and artistically, from childhood to my elder years.

 

In his wedding speech, my son Cooper (who inherited a sarcastic sense of humor) thanked me for providing him and his sister Natalie with a better life than they could have reasonably expected as the offspring of a jazz musician. That is success by any measure.

 

(David) Chase Sanborn

Jan, 2024

www.chasesanborn.com

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​​​​​​​​​​