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Archives | Classifieds | JFB | Sunday, December 14, 2014

Interview with George Roberts Paul Hill

Interview with George RobertsCoronado Ferry Landing12 August 2004

I am honored to have the opportunity to interviewGeorge Roberts, Mr. Bass Trombone, who has figuredso prominently in many OTJ Forum conversations andtopics. A studio veteran with more than 6000 movieand recording credits, George is singlehandedlyresponsible for bringing the bass trombone from “lastchair” to solo voice with his lyrical and expressiveplaying.

George has been interviewed innumerable times bymany different journals and magazines. We are not limited by the space constraints typicallyfound in printed media, so this interview can be presented to you in its entirety, giving yousome real insight into the man behind the horn.

I would like to thank Mr. Roberts for taking the time to talk to us, for he is very busy and histime is extremely valuable. Thanks, George!

George, when and why did you start playing the trombone?

Well, my mother, in Des Moines, Iowa asked if I wanted to go see my brother play baritone

saxophone in the junior high school band. I said that would be fine. We went to Washington Irving

Junior High School in Des Moines, Iowa where the band was playing and my mother asked me if I

would like to play one of those instruments on stage. I told my mother that I would love to play one

of those things that “goes up and down with your hands”. Mother said that we should go ask the

teacher. The teacher informed my mother that I would never play trombone because my arms were

not long enough. The teacher put me on clarinet. I quickly replied that I did not want to play clarinet

– I wanted to play trombone! I could smell the slide oil already. Anyway, I ended up playing clarinet

in the school band for two years. It was really kind of funny, the way I ended up on clarinet but I just

hated it!

I wanted to play trombone! So, finally, one day, I went into downtown Des Moines to the basement

of this music store and up on the top shelf, was this old, dusty, beatup trombone. Just really beat

up. Now, I have to explain that we really didn’t have a heck of a lot of money when we were kids

(19391940). I started playing trombone when I was twelve. Anyway, I saw this horn and went to

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talk to the shop owner and asked how much he would sell that trombone for. He said that I could

probably have it for five dollars.

Now my brother and I, when we wanted new bikes, would go down to the Western Auto Store and

get used bikes out of the back, take them home and paint them. These were our new bikes because

we couldn’t afford (real) new bikes. So, I told my dad that I had found this trombone down in the

basement of Des Moines Music. I told dad that it was the greatest looking horn I’d ever seen. I also

told dad that, if he bought that trombone for me, I would paint it (stressing that it was only five

dollars) and that I would have a “brand new” trombone and could then start playing trombone in the

school band. Dad told me that he would go look at it the next day. So, all day long I kept thinking,

boy, I can’t wait to get home.

Anyway, I came home through the back door, not the front door. Didn’t go through the living room

but went straight to dad and asked if he had seen the trombone. Dad said, George, I saw that

trombone and I wouldn’t give a nickel for it. I said to dad, you don’t love me – I want to play

trombone. I’ve got to have a trombone! I told dad that since he didn’t love me, I was running away

from home! Dad said, okay, fine, I’ll help you pack your bags. Anyway, I got mad and stormed up to

my bedroom and noticed that it was starting to get dark outside. I packed a small bag of socks and

shorts and stomped out the back door of the house. There was an alley beside our house. I got about

halfway up the alley and it was getting dark and spooky, so I thought that maybe I would put off this

running away idea until the next morning. So, I went back inside and informed my father that I was

still running away but was putting it off until morning. I was such a fool but learned a lesson that

I’ve never forgotten as long as I’ve lived.

My father said, get in the living room and sit down; I want to talk to you. So, I stomped into the

living room and lying on the couch, in an open case, was a brand new trombone. It was a Super Olds.

And I looked at that horn and had just made the biggest fool of myself…ever! I started crying. It still

gives me funny feelings about it because that was a true love affair, my dad going down there and

getting me a new trombone. Now, dad paid every month for that trombone, he couldn’t afford it but

he did it out of his love for me.

I thought, with dad doing this, I’ve got to learn to play this trombone now! He took me to Drake

University, which was only six blocks from where we lived, and got Jack Dalby, who was a kid getting

his trombone credentials at Drake, and asked Jack if he could teach me to play trombone. Jack said

that he would teach me but told dad not to let me touch that new horn until he could talk to me, so

I would know how to respect and treat the horn. My dad said fine, so finally Jack Dalby and I started

doing things such as whole notes, long tones and slurs. Jack was a baritone player, too, and had the

greatest baritone sound that you ever heard in your life!

Jack Dalby and Robert Marsteller played together in the LA Philharmonic and were competitors in all

that was going on with the baritone back in those days. Jack said, well I won once in awhile (laughs).

One day, my father came in and said, George, get dressed. I’m going to take you down to hear a real

trombone player now. Dad took me down to the Shrine Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa, where the

U.S. Marine Band, The President’s Own, was playing. The main trombone soloist was Robert Isele.

You know, Jerry Cimera, Arban, all those people. I was 13 and he comes out on the stage and starts

playing the most amazing intricate passage…high and low…all over the place and my thoughts were

like, am I going to have to play like that on my trombone? I could never do that! I immediately



wanted to meet Robert Isele because when somebody plays that way, it is a reflection of their

personality. I wanted to meet Robert Isele to find out what kind of a guy he was that enabled him to

play that way. His technical skills were so good that he just really startled me.

I did a clinic last year at Penn State University with all my kids from six different colleges; trombone

choirs and things and the Marine trombone section was there. I mentioned to some of them that all

my life, I had wanted to meet Robert Isele. I wanted to sit and talk with him but I could never find

out where he lived. Well, the Marines informed me that Robert Isele lived around Penn State

somewhere. His understudy, Jim Erdman, overheard this conversation and called Robert Isele on the

phone and handed me the phone. I said, hello, who is this? The other voice said, this is Robert Isele.

I said, are you serious – I’ve been wanting to meet you for 60 years! I started to tell Mr. Isele about

myself and Jim Erdman broke in to inform me, George, he knows who you are – he knows

everything that you have ever done and he is a great fan of yours. I said, he’s a fan of mine? How

could that be? All my life, every day, I thought about Robert Isele. So, after I finished the clinic at

Penn State with the kids, Jim Erdman said, George, get your horn, get in the car. Everybody – we’re

all going over to Robert Isele’s house. I just couldn’t believe that after all these years; I was finally

going to meet Robert Isele.

So, we were driving down the street and there was this old fellow (he’s 86) standing out, looking up

and down the street waving to the car. I got out of the car and looked at him and said, you’re Robert

Isele. He said, that’s right, George, and I gave him a big hug. We went into the house and talked for

three hours. He is the most wonderful guy in the world. His humor everything about him is exactly

why he plays the way he does. He plays technically fantastic but he also is one of the greatest

interpreters that I’ve ever heard in my life. He plays a song just like Frank (Sinatra) sang and, you go

from one end of the trombone to the other, this is why I’ve always wanted to meet him, and found

out that he plays that way by being the neatest, most wonderful person in the whole world. So, your

playing is really a reflection of your personality. The type of person you are is the way you are going

to play. I still believe this today and tell all my kids that your personality is going to dictate what you

do on the horn.

You know, I’ve never heard a “downer” play a beautiful ballad in my life. Never. You lose if you’re

negative. Smile and be happy when you play and love what you’re doing! That’s where it’s going to

happen and that was Robert Isele. Anyway, I waited 60 years to meet Robert Isele, so when we got

up to leave, I turned to him and said, Robert, you don’t know how much this means to me, and I

gave him a big hug. I stepped back to leave and noticed that he had tears coming down his face.

That really shook me up because I absolutely adore the guy. He was always a dream for me of what

a trombone player should be. And that’s exactly what he was. That was one of the most wonderful

meetings that I’ve ever had in my life – three hours with Robert Isele.

I played tenor trombone and was in a conservatory out here in LA. I studied composition and such

and had a friend – a bass player who asked me if I wanted to go on the road? I said, what? Make

money with my trombone? Oh, boy! So I left the conservatory and went on the road with a hotel

band. It was just some dipsy hotel music but I was making money with my trombone. My parents

were really proud of me (tongueincheek) for making money with my trombone!

I was with the Ray Robbins Band in Milwaukee when I got a call from Gene Krupa’s Band in Chicago.

A friend of mine, a bass player (Don Simpson) from Des Moines said, George, the trombone player



from Krupa’s band is leaving. Would you like to come on over and play trombone with Krupa’s band?

Don said, I know you’re over in Milwaukee and it’s close. I said, you bet! I’d love to do that! So, I quit

Ray Robbins’ Band and joined Gene Krupa’s Band in Chicago two or three weeks later. I walked in and

you know who was playing 1st trombone in those years? (’47 or ’48) Well, it was Urbie Green. Talk

about astounded! I was about 18 or 19 years old at the time. Urbie Green, Gene Mulluns, and

myself. What a bunch of skinny, little brats! To sit night after night and listen to Urbie play was one

of the highlights of my life. He is one of the dearest friends that I have.

When did you make the switch to bass trombone?

I thought, at the time, that every young person should sit down by themselves and ask themselves,

what the heck am I doing? What am I doing now? What should I be doing? I thought, if I’m going to

play tenor trombone, I’ve got a lot of work to do because I don’t play like Urbie Green. Urbie Green is

a heck of a better trombone player than I am. I’ve got to find some way to be as good or equal to

Urbie or I’m out of this business. I tried to examine my own playing and find something that I did

better. I thought, my low notes are pretty good and my pedal tones are better than Urbie’s. I said,

wait a minute! If I were to get a bass trombone like Bart Barcelona (who played powerfully, like a

bull. Tough. Loud. Always. Never anything beautiful like a ballad. The bass trombone, by the way, is

the most beautiful ballad instrument in the world. Really, it’s like velvet. It’s the male voice) in

Kenton’s band, that might be the answer. I asked Gene if he minded if I switched to bass trombone.

He said, no, go right ahead, we’re going to Texas where Urbie’s brother lives and we can get out

some old George Williams charts and some of the Stravinsky stuff that’s so good with four

trombones. So, fine – I switched to bass trombone and one night Gene said, George, I’ve never

heard you play. Go down front and play something. You know, the audience used to stand around

the band, right up front. So I went down and looked at Norm Schnell, the piano player and asked him

to play “Where or When”, I start on a low Eb. So, I began to play and when we were finished a lot of

people really started to applaud wildly. That just shook me up. Really, it did. That was the first time I

had ever been in front of a big band audience. Oh, boy – I almost flipped!

I started to think, are my thoughts right? Should I be doing this more? All the time? I went back and

sat down and Urbie looked at me and said, George, you’re the only one I know who plays that like a

trombone. POW!!! That set into me like you wouldn’t believe. From that moment on, I decided that

it’s got to be the greatest song horn in the world. That means being a singer. I want to be Urbie

Green, just an octave lower. That’s exactly what I set out to do. With Kenton, later Johnny Richards;

I played Stella By Starlight, Yesterdays, Alone Together, and some other things like that.

I went to Reno for awhile after Krupa’s band broke up. That’s where I met Sue, my wife. Kenton

called me while I was in Reno. The hotel maid came in and said, there’s a man on the phone named

Stan Kenton who wants to talk to you. So, I grabbed the phone and Stan asked me if I wanted to

join his band. I was screaming, YES!!! into the phone.

So, I started preparing myself by memorizing about six or seven of Kenton’s tunes. You know, the

bass trombone parts. Sue and I would go outside – I would practice outside to try to build up my lung

capacity. After playing with the show band and the hotel band, I needed some lung capacity in order

to survive with Stan. So, I would go outside and practice long tones and stuff.

We were on the road for some time and I wrote a terrible chart. Johnny Richards heard it (during this

period, he wrote Stella By Starlight and all these other great tunes) and wasn’t real impressed. You



know, the song things were the key, even with Kenton. The musicians who went down front with

Kenton, like Maynard (Ferguson) were playing triple high C’s and enough notes to choke a mule.

When I went down front, it was always “dah, dahdah, daaahhh, dahdah” from some beautiful ballad.

The audience always loved my ballads. The rest of the players would say, that little soandso! They

were playing their tails off and I was just standing there playing my long tone ballads.

I thank Urbie in so many different directions for that time I came back after playing my solo, for

telling me that I’m the only one who plays the bass trombone like a trombone. Well, it is a

trombone! Bass trombone shouldn’t have a sound like a baritone or a tuba, or anything. It’s a

trombone sound. Bass trombone should be resonant and project. The direction I went was to put

that trombone sound together with songs.

Along that line, can you give us your thoughts about the importance of sound?

For myself, I honestly believe that you’ve got to have the greatest sound in the world. If somebody’s

going to hire you as a trombone player, they’re hiring you because of the fantastic sound that you

have. Unless you’re into real intricate jazz or that type of thing but even then, I think, the great jazz

players, the really good ones…Urbie, Watrous all have great sound (pounds the table for emphasis).

Sound, to me, is the number one most important thing you can do. Get the greatest sound in the

world and learn what to do with it. It has to be that way.

Why do I think the bass trombone represents the male voice? I was with Sinatra for so long. Where

he sang is where I’m talking. Where you’re talking. That is the bass trombone lyrical range. Too

many bass trombone players want to be smart and play everything down an octave. You kill the song

that way because you can’t get out of the hole. You’ve got to put yourself into the lyrical range of the

horn or you won’t be able to play with it.

Do you feel that was part of Frank’s success, as well? That he recognized how closelythe average person could identify with his sound?

Absolutely! I have always felt and thought that Frank Sinatra was one of the greatest trombone

teachers who ever lived. If you listen to his phrasing, the way you say what you play…there’s the big

one. Say it the right way with a great sound – and I think that’s a bass trombone!

And that’s the best thing I can say about sound. Long tones and slurs. I’ve been saying that all of my

life. You know, kids often ask me, how do you do that? Play a slow ballad, that’s the greatest way to

play long tones and slurs that you can find. Make a song out of your long tones. Sing, sing, sing!

That’s my feeling about long tones and the importance of a musical, songlike approach to playing

the bass trombone.

There was a time, when I first went out to LA…one of the big contractors who did most of the hiring,

he worked for Bobby Helfer. He wouldn’t really hire me at the very beginning because I was a jazzer.

Oh, he thought that a jazzer couldn’t play legitimate or semilegit, like they do on motion pictures.

Like, all these big pictures had Alfred Newman and Elmer Bernstein, and all that. He thought, George

couldn’t possibly do that.

So, I’m sitting at home one morning. This was a big turning point in my life, it really was. It was

about 8:30 in the morning and I get this phone call, and this is how Helfer was (in a very business

like voice), Mr. Roberts, what are you doing right now. I replied, I’m having an unemployed cup of



coffee. Helfer said, how long would it take you to get in your car with your bass trombone, your bag

of mutes, and everything else that you carry and get down to Radio Recorder’s Annex? How long will

it take you to get down here? I said, about 40 minutes. Helfer said, get all your stuff, put it in the car

and be at Radio Recorder’s in 40 minutes. Buzzzzzz. And he hung the phone up. I thought, good

Lord. I ran and got my stuff and put it in the car and I was there in 30 minutes!

I walked in the door and there’s the LA Philharmonic sitting there. The bass trombonist had gotten

up and walked out on Helfer and Igor Stravinsky. This is insanity, you just don’t do that! Some of the

players convinced Helfer to “try the new kid” (me). Anyway, I was told, get back there, sit down, and

play. I went back, looked at what I had to play and I thought, well, all I can do is look at the part and

count like heck. I had to play a solo with the harp, which was all the way across the room. I already

knew that the sound delay was going to be a sonofagun but Stravinsky began to conduct and we

got a little way in and he stopped and said, he (George) is right and you’re wrong (harpist) – play

with him! We made the date that (snaps fingers) fast.

When the date was over everybody was saying, George, great! Way to go! Helfer was just frowning,

furious, sitting against the wall. Everybody thought it was just fabulous, what I had done and I had

just saved Bobby Helfer from a guy walking out on one of his calls with Igor Stravinsky. That, I’ll

never forget. It didn’t really hit me because it happened so fast. If I had known what I was walking

into, I might not have been able to pull it off. On the way home, I started thinking about Helfer, Igor

Stravinsky, and the music business and I started shaking in the car. It really would have blown me if

I had known what I was walking into. I worked for Bobby Helfer from that day forward. The other

guy didn’t. You don’t get up and walk out, no matter how good you think you are. There’s always

somebody around the corner waiting.

Smile and be a happy individual – that’s the way I feel about it. I am so thankful for that opportunity

because what actually happened was me playing that thing with Bob Kraft and Igor Stravinsky (Kraft

was the conductor) was that it opened up television, motion pictures, and everything else for me in

LA.

I went out looking for a job one day and passed by Capitol Records. Well, Lee Gillette was the biggest

A & R man at Capitol at the time. He used to come out and record Kenton – he was the money

behind the Kenton recordings. Lee used to come out and record us on the road and he liked me. He

used to come up and talk to me during breaks because he liked bass trombone, he liked the sound. If

you think about it, an A & R man is always looking for new sounds. Anyway, I had always thought

Lee was an Engineer because he was always sitting at the controls, playing with knobs.

So, I went into Capitol to see Lee. A & R man? What’s an A & R man? I was just going to see my

friend Lee, the Engineer. I asked the receptionist if I could see Lee Gillette and she said, let me call

Mr. Gillette’s office and see if he is available. I thought, Mr. Gillette? Office? What’s this all about? The

receptionist sent me up to see Lee and I was petrified. I thought Lee would just be in a back room

fiddling with electronics. So, I started walking toward Lee’s office and when I got there, the door was

open and Gillette was sitting there, talking with some guy at his desk. I was so scared that I

continued walking right on by. Well, he saw me walk by and he got up and said, George, my office is

back here. What are you doing back here? I said, well, Sue is having a baby and I didn’t want to be

on the road with the band with a baby on the way, so I came home to see if I could make it in LA.

Lee said, come in, I’ve got somebody I want you to meet: Nelson (Riddle), this is George Roberts. We



sat down to talk and became inseparable friends for a million years, Nelson and I.

What Nelson Riddle opened up was the sound, the melody – being a time player, a melody player was

the thing that opened up the music business for bass trombonists. Nelson was a big benefactor of

ours. Nelson and I talked for so many years that it’s ridiculous, about the horn and the way to write

for it. I remember once telling Nelson that bass trombone is the best melody horn in the world and

he said, you must have the heart of an elephant! I thanked Nelson for the compliment and repeated

that bass trombone really is the best melody horn in the world. About eight years later, Nelson did

The Joy of Living album. After we finished The Joy of Living album, I couldn’t wait to get up to the

podium where he was standing and say, Nelson, you must have the heart of an elephant!

The personal friendship of Nelson Riddle and I was a long, long thing. This relationship was one of the

most important things that could have happened for all of us bass trombone players because when I

got out to LA there were only two or three guys and some doublers who just played a note every

once in awhile. Not really bass trombone players. All of a sudden, things started changing. Like,

somebody would write something really hard for bass trombone, which meant they were going to

have to hire a bass trombone player, not just a doubler. This caused the business to really grow for

us. That’s what I worked toward for a long time.

This enhanced visibility for the bass trombone generated increased interest amongcomposers and arrangers, once they understood the capabilities of the instrument.

Absolutely! Nelson, bless his heart, out of that meeting with Gillette and the thing with Helfer and

Stravinsky and all that kind of stuff – if you put all of that stuff together, there’s where your

commercial business came from for all of us bass trombone players. From one to thousands!

In an excerpt from the book, September in the Rain: The Life of Nelson Riddle, it isstated, “Almost immediately, Nelson began to make use of Roberts’ unique sound onNat Cole recording dates. As Paul Tanner observed, “George played delicately andpretty on a clumsy instrument, he really opened up the bass trombone business”.

Nelson Riddle had the guts to expose the horn. The bass trombone had to be exposed in the right

way. If it wasn’t exposed, you’re not going to get called. If nobody knows what it does, then, where

are you?

Nelson had an identity, a voice. Nobody in the world wrote beautifully, like Nelson Riddle did, for bass

trombone, flute, harmon mute trumpet, big strings and stuff like that. And, then there was his

melodic brilliance. When you hear one of the bass trombone things or bass trombone with that

harmon mute and flute, people immediately recognize that as Nelson Riddle.

George, could we discuss the trombones that you have played – what horn you startedon, what you have played, and what you are playing now?

Well, when I first started, I played a 70H Conn with the tuningintheslide. I’m not Tommy Dorsey,

so I don’t need a featherlight slide. I found that, sometimes, the weight actually helped me. In

those days, there were only two pro horns available for bass trombone players: Bach and Conn. I

started working with different companies. These days, every company makes a pretty darned good

bass trombone.

It wasn’t my egotism that caused the Roberts Model Olds. That was Reg Olds. The reason he wanted



my name on the horn was that Olds had a reputation, at the time, for only building the student

model Ambassador. Reg felt that if a name player would help him build a bass trombone, that he

could break into the pro line. Zig Kanstul was there and we built a prototype, with a copy of the old

Conn Schmidt bell, a copied Remington leadpipe, and various other copied parts.

Every time I participated in developing a new horn, one thing that stayed with me was the leadpipe.

My leadpipe wasn’t that different but I didn’t want to feel alienated with a new leadpipe. I don’t like

ultradark sounds. In symphony orchestras, for example, conductors want a dark, heavy sound.

Okay, then, that’s what you have to do. I chose more of a commercial sound. Lighter, singing…that

type of a thing.

Zig Kanstul called me up a long time ago and said, George, I’ve got a factory in Anaheim. I’m making

bass trombones and I’d love to have you come out and look at them. I finally went out one day and

walked through the building, asking if Zig was there. Zig saw me and said, George, wait a minute! He

ran across the factory to a card table where there was a bass trombone bell sitting on a stand and a

slide lying there. He put them both together, brought them over and asked if I had brought my

mouthpiece. I played it and looked at Zig and said, at 76, I need a new horn like a hole in the head

but I’m going to take it! That’s just what I told him he’s an old friend from years ago.

The Kanstul quality control is great. If I could say anything to bass trombone players, they should try

his horns – he’s got single triggers and double triggers and everything like that. All bass trombones;

Conn, Bach, Holton, Kanstul, Olds, everybody makes bass trombones. We only had two at the

beginning. That all changed and I think it’s because of songs and sound and that’s part of what

created the business for bass trombone players.

The Kanstul you play – isn’t it more or less a 60H clone?

It looks like the old 70H but I think really down deep it’s more of a single trigger 62H. It looks like

that, with a 9.5inch bell, the tuning is in the top slide tube (you don’t even know it’s there), the bell

is seamless with no unnecessary locking mechanisms and it is very vibrant. When you pick the horn

up and play, you’ll find out real fast. The neat thing for all the guys around here is that Zig is just up

in Anaheim. Nobody knew that before and they should know about it because he’s got a great

product.

I haven’t played a horn that plays like the Kanstul horn for years and they are excellent, excellent

horns. I’m throwing that in because Zig waited nearly two years for me to come out and say hello

and I thought that was pretty nice.

I remember my buddy with the LA Philharmonic, Jeff Reynolds, came up to me once and said, you

know, you’re the reason I play bass trombone. A few years later, all these double triggers were flying

around and I’ve never played a double trigger in my life. I did the whole business, everything that

I’ve ever played on a single trigger bass trombone. Jeff came up to me one day after a real tough

session and he said, you sonofagun! You knew all this time that the double trigger didn’t mean a

darned thing. Jeff said, you’re still playing the single trigger, aren’t you? I said, yeah, when you play a

concert with the Philharmonic which horn do you play? And he said, the single trigger Bach. I said,

that’s what I thought!

There’s a lot of opinion on the different styles of horns that companies make. It’s important that they



all make horns for us. For you, me , Jeff. We have more of a choice than one or two horns.

Everybody else does, why not bass trombone?

George, know that you favor the single trigger bass trombone and have worked yourentire career on one. What are your thoughts about double valve and single valve basstrombones?

Well, I’m a little prejudiced that way. Single triggers are light and I’m an old man! When I pick up a

double trigger, I fall over on my side. I’m kidding but I just like the single trigger – it’s light, more

resonant. When somebody hands me a double trigger, I get about half way through the material and

I have to put the horn down and shake my hand to get the blood back into it. Double valves are just

too heavy.

I have always thought, what in the heck is the point of doing this? Why don’t I play a single trigger

horn like I’ve always played and not bother with this? Well, you know, I get cramps from the weight

of the double trigger and it drives me crazy. I just didn’t want to bother worrying about a physical

thing with my hand because I’m not King Kong, you know!

You just sound like King Kong!

Not the original, maybe the second one – thanks a lot! Mainly with the double trigger, it’s the weight.

I like a horn that projects. Heavy, heavy horns are dark. To me, their sound goes sideways and I

want my sound to go straight ahead. My new Kanstul is very light and responsive. It really resonates.

Mark Lawrence, principal trombonist of the San Francisco Symphony, came out to a BonesWest

rehearsal and the guys asked me to play something with the group after Mark’s clinic was finished.

So, I played and he came up afterward and asked to try my horn. Mark picked it up and played it and

remarked, I could play this anywhere. Evidently, he ordered one, too. It’s a matter of opinion, you

know, whether you like dark sounds or light sounds or what sound you’re being paid to produce.

Sometimes, you have to accommodate. If you know how to accommodate all of the various

situations, you’re in business.

What about mouthpieces, George?

I have a mouthpiece that Burt Herrick made for me years and years ago. I played a 1.5G Bach for

years and Burt made me an oversized 1.5G that I just loved. I played the Herrick for a long time,

then went with Conn for awhile. Conn made a copy of Burt’s oversized 1.5G, which I liked. I thought

that was just great.

I am now playing a Kanstul GR. That is basically the same Conn mouthpiece, which is basically the

oversized 1.5G that I played for so many years. So, it goes all the way back, nothing dramatically

different. Zig said, I’ve copied everything else for you, so I might as well make the mouthpiece, too! I

like it every bit as well as what I had been playing before. I like everything, the mouthpiece, the

horn…they work just great for me.

You have discussed the importance of long tones and lip slurs in your developmentalyears. What sort of warmup routine do you use to get ready for a performance?

Long tones, long tones, long tones! Some slurs. But everything is played real soft. I don’t start off by

blowing real loud. I know some people do but I don’t. Lloyd Ulyate, my dearest friend (who passed



away just recently) and I were playing a date. Anyway, when it came time to warm up, I started my

soft, long tones and noticed that Lloyd was playing even softer and longer. Daaaahhhh, daaaahhhh,

you know. Over on the other side of the room, was Dick Nash, and he was playing, like, doodleoodle

dee. All over the upper stratosphere. That was his warmup! Lloyd looked at me and said, George,

you know that you and I have to get a new warmup. Dick’s only been here five minutes and he’s

already earned his pay for the night. We haven’t done anything! That was really very funny. Lloyd

was such a dear friend of mine.

There again: a sound player. Dick Nash: sound player. Eddie Cusby: sound player. Dick Nole: sound

player. Keep going down the line: sound, sound, sound. How do you get that? By playing long tones

and slurs! That isn’t going to change ever, I don’t think.

The manufacturers are all making great horns now – they all are. Doug Yeo, with the Boston

Symphony, plays a Yamaha and sounds fabulous. I called Doug when he accepted that job; to tell

him how pleased I was that one of the young guys had taken over a John Coffee tradition. That one

of the young players took over one of the oldtimer’s, stronghold chairs. That Doug would have a

family and a life, like every normal human being could have. I am really proud of Doug for getting in

there and doing that.

Doug and I are very dear friends. I just saw him in Ithaca at the festival. Zig had asked me to go to

the ITF and just sit at the Kanstul table. One of the guys asked Doug to try the Kanstul bass

trombone. So, Doug came up and started playing a real pretty song and I said, give me the horn! You

know – just kidding!

A lot of the playing on a single trigger horn is physical. The horn is light and I can last all night! I do a

thing down here, at the Coronado Ferry Landing, where I play for two straight hours. If I were

playing a double trigger horn, I couldn’t last the two hours. My hand would never last. How about a

sixhour date, that’s the same thing. I just never played a double trigger bass trombone, mainly

because it hurt my hand and I didn’t need it. That’s basically why I didn’t do that…

I think they’re writing a lot more for double trigger bass trombone, whatever that means. They can

write more notes, different combinations of positions and things like this with valves and such. What

the heck does that mean? Are they going to write more mechanically now than they were before?

I think that’s true. What I’ve seen happening is that composers and arrangers areattempting to make the music meet the technical capabilities of the instrument and itsimply means that they are plugging more (low) B naturals into the music.

Well, that’s right. I still think that we should place more emphasis on the music and less on technical

and mechanical processes.

George, you once mentioned to me the importance of “placing” pedal tones into a tunesuch that they are musically tasteful and not in a manner that blows everyone’s hairoff.

When I first started attending the ITA’s, years and years ago, I played “Send in the Clowns”, which is

a Sinatra thing. After playing this very nice, soft piece, the very last note of the whole piece is an Eb

pedal tone. I played it almost like a breath. Just extremely soft with a decrescendo, until it simply

disappeared. If you play that Eb loud, you just destroy the whole tune that you played! If you play an

Eb pedal tone like velvet, they’ll eat you alive! And they will!



You know, when youngsters see a pedal tone written on the page, they just hit it, like BAM! One of

the most important things that I could say to kids is to be absolute masters of simplicity. Sound.

Time. Inception. All the simple things. Do the simple things really just fabulous – you’ll have 95% of

the business, if you do! There’s only 5% of this business that’s stark terror. You never know when

that’s coming but if you’re a master of simplicity, you will do just fine. If you listen to TV and motion

pictures – you can play that – the music is not all that hard! You have to have a great sound.

Master of simplicity, great sound – you’ve heard these trumpet players such as Malcom McNabb play

something in the middle of an Alfred Newman piece…daahhh, deehhh, daahhh (large intervals). Real

soft. Not a clam. Where are those trumpet players today? Well, there are very few and it’s just like

with trombonists – masters of simplicity who have great sound and can control their instruments. I

think that really is true.

You mentioned that one’s sound is a reflection of their personality – when you play abeautiful ballad, what goes through your mind? How do you approach the tune?

The first thing I think of when I play a beautiful ballad is that I want my wife, Suzanne, sitting about

ten feet in front of me. If I play her a beautiful, soft ballad and she closes her eyes while I’m playing,

then I just won. If she doesn’t close her eyes, I’m not sure if she liked it, or not. That applies to

anyone who’s listening to you. I want to have a love affair with the horn. Like Sinatra I want to

play like Frank sang.

What other vocalists do you emulate in your playing?

Tony Bennett. Sarah Vaughn, oh, man! She was a good friend of mine, bless her heart. Nat Cole. He

was absolutely magnificent! They were wonderful vocalists but the key guys were Frank and Tony. If

you can play like those two guys, with a great sound, with their conception of playing the song, you’d

be a heck of a trombone player. You really would! Put some headphones on and really get into

listening to the good vocalists sing and the way they phrase.

How do they get their vibrato? You can actually take your handslide and, with hardly any motion,

replicate the truly great vocalists, completely in character. You listen to all that stuff and realize that

their vibrato is not distorted like “WAH, WAH, WAH, WAH, WAH” or ultra fast like “bababababa”. It’s

very subtle, smooth, and in character. It adds but does not detract from the song.

I’ve got four CD’s from Irv Kratka (Music Minus One). They have about 100 Frank Sinatra

backgrounds with strings. Although they are “canned”, you still get the same feeling as if the

performance were really live. That’s what I play here, at the Coronado Ferry Landing. You could play

for four hours from those CD’s. These CD’s are good enough that you still get the same feeling of

playing with live background.

If a little kid from Des Moines, Iowa went home one night and played “Here’s That Rainy Day” that

Sinatra did and he goes into his bedroom, takes his horn out, puts that CD on…his parents sitting in

another part of the house are going to go straight through the ceiling. That’s how he’s going to learn

how to be what we’re talking about. That’s only one means to do it. This way, a bass trombone

player can be selfcontained.

How am I going to survive in this industry with all of the electronics taking over the field? I thought,

if you can sing to what Irv’s got, you can play to it. That’s my library for down here. Everybody loves



this stuff because they’ve all heard it and they know where it comes from. Just sit down and pound

out some lead sheets.

George, if you would tell us a little bit about your time in the Navy?

Well, I’ll tell you, the Navy was interesting. I went to boot camp at Great Lakes at age 17. One

morning we got up and the wind was absolutely howling and we were going out to play for colors at 6

am. So we marched out there and my hands were just freezing to death. I dropped my slide and the

band marched over it! The Chief saw this and said, Roberts, come into my office as soon as you

finish. He said, I’m giving you a new horn and oil to put on the slide, a plastic mouthpiece, and

gloves. You’re going to play colors every morning for the rest of your life!

I took all the steps at Great Lakes in order to get into the Navy music program which I thought

would be a good thing to do. I had to wait for my orders to come because I was in for two years. The

Chief called me in and said that my orders were in but if I accepted them, I would have to commit for

an additional year. Well, I wanted to get out, so I could go on the road with a big name band. The

next morning, I was in the draft for Guam, so I spent two years on Guam! I had my mother send my

old, beatup valve trombone and I put together a little band that played at the Officer’s Club on

Guam. You know, we planted coconut trees and stuff like that…

When I got out and returned to Des Moines, and went straight out to a conservatory on the GI Bill,

to learn more about music and the music business. I wanted to learn faster, rather than spending

another four or five years learning this stuff in college, which is sometimes okay and sometimes not.

At the conservatory, I met a guy who got me my first paying job and I was actually making money

playing the trombone. I thought, hey, this is really great!

After this job, I returned to Des Moines and got the call to play in Milwaukee. All the jobs that you get

in the music business are basically from friends…my friend from the conservatory got me the job in

Milwaukee. From Milwaukee, I got the offer from Krupa. When Krupa’s band broke up in Chicago, I

went to Reno. After a year in Reno playing show bands, I got the call from Kenton to see if I would

come out to LA. Bob Fitzpatrick and Mel Burne were the two friends who got me into that band. They

knew that I could play because they knew me when I was with Krupa and Urbie. We’d hang out once

in awhile. It’s your friends who will get you all of your jobs.

What type of thing do you like to do away from the horn? Any hobbies?

Well, I love photography! I haven’t really had time to get totally involved with it very much any more

but, boy, I really love photography – it’s a great art form. What I really like is black and white

photography. You can be so expressive in the black and white medium. If I didn’t have this trombone

thing, I’d probably find some way to be involved with photography, you know, because it provides an

opportunity for selfexpression. You can enlarge a negative and get eight or nine different pictures

from that blowup, especially if you have good negatives.

It was Urbie who got me started on photography. Then he went with Woody Herman’s band years

ago and left the band. I said, Urbie, what the heck am I going to do with all of this photo equipment

you sold me! We used to mess with our photo equipment at night on the road. That was a lot of fun!

George, you mentioned, that as you have “matured”, it has become more difficult tohold up heavy horns. Are there any other adjustments that you have made over theyears, in order to keep playing?



I can tell you right now that, anyone who is honest with themselves, knows their own strengths and

weaknesses better than anybody in the whole world. I know my weaknesses better than anybody.

You know that I have been playing for the past ten years down here in Coronado playing beautiful

ballads. Playing long tones and slurs that is the way I am going to leave the business. It’s the way I

came into the business.

To play for two straight hours, playing every tune is not that easy. I feel that now, physically. But I

know how to lie about it! And cheat. And connive. Playing in the staff for two straight hours – that’s

a real workout! I’ll say, oh look, here comes an F above the staff and I just play “baaahhh”, you

know. I didn’t have to play that high F it becomes an F in the staff!

What advice do you have for aspiring your trombonists who want to break into thebusiness?

Try to get the greatest sound that you can and learn how to play tunes. You will know how well you

are doing. Remember, I said that we are all the masters of our own strengths and weaknesses? You’ll

know if you are playing it right or wrong. That’s where you are going to start asking so many

questions. I think the idea of being a sound player and a song player is the greatest way to begin.

Upon showing George a photo of Bill Watrous, he noticed that Bill was carrying aplastic garbage bag.

You know, I probably shouldn’t do this but you see that plastic garbage bag? Watrous and I used to

play a lot of dates and we sat next to each other. One night, I saw a piece of paper on the floor and I

threw it under his chair. He would wait for a couple of takes, and throw two pieces under my chair.

This went on and on until there was this great mound of garbage being thrown back and forth under

our chairs! Well, the contractor is not very happy and says, you guys are going to stay here until that

mess is cleaned up! Not smart to do but we’ve been doing that for years. You know, Watrous,

Marcellus and I are the best garbage players in the whole world! Oh, we do terrible things to each

other. We really do!

George, you have a bass trombone method that was put out several years ago. Whatskills should young bass trombonists be focusing on? (Let’s Play Bass Trombone)

That’s the book that Paul Tanner and I did together. The book starts off as simple as possible but

gradually gets more involved. There again, is that thing about long tones and slurs. You can see that

developing from the first pages of the book, where there’s nothing but long tones: whole notes, half

notes, quarter notes, eighth notes. Play slowly and precisely with great accuracy and focused sound.

This way, you get a great sound before moving onto anything else.

There is one exercise in the back of the book that came from Frank Comstock’s Pattern album. It is

graduated down in half steps in my book. That was a special lick that I wanted to include in the book

– a drill that I have used for my own playing.

How did you tune your horn for recordings such as Meet Mr. Roberts and Bottom’sUp?

I love playing in Bb/F because that’s easy to tune and leave set up that way. I had a habit, for fifty

ears, of scanning a chart and looking ahead. If I saw a wideopen low B natural sitting there, a whole

note, then I would pull to E. If I had to play it in E, then I would do so. I looked for B naturals. If it



was in eighth notes, I would lip it down because you’ll feel the note but you won’t hear it. You know,

that’s really true – you didn’t really hear that B but you felt it. That’s the way I played for fifty years.

I could always catch the low C out in flat seven.

What are your thoughts about playing with Stan Kenton from 1951 to 1953?

You know, when I was a kid, the two bands I wanted to play with were Woody Herman and Stan

Kenton. Ultimately, I got with Kenton and Krupa. Kenton was always a thrill because that first

ensemble sound was always so powerful; it could really just knock you out! You don’t forget that –

it’s a sound you want to be around all your life. My dream bands were Woody Herman and Kenton.

So, I was fortunate to get with Krupa and Kenton.

Who do you like to listen to?

I like to put on the phones and listen to a lot of the Don Costa/Riddle stuff that they did for Sinatra

and listen to the backgrounds and the way they interpreted things. That’s been my whole act for so

long and I love to do that with phones and get right inside the orchestra. I sit there and think about

the song and emulate the voice. You can even work your slide hand, to get the right feel and

especially the vibrato. I have some very strong, intimate memories of playing this music and I can

really get a good feeling from these recordings.

There’s a sort of escalation in trombone size going on – they keep getting bigger andbigger. What are your thoughts about the “bigger is better” argument?

Times have changed. My own feeling is that bass trombone is still just a trombone and it should

sound like a trombone. It shouldn’t sound like a baritone or a tuba. It should be a trombone. That

means that you should be able to sing and whack notes just like a tenor trombone. The first order is

that bass trombone should still have a trombone sound – to me, that’s the important thing. If you

get too dark or too big, you can only play with certain groups.

Most students in conservatories and schools of music are intentionally directed towardthat big, dark orchestral sound. Given your experience with commercial music, is therea danger in this?

I think that they’ll take care of business. They will hear things that they really like and will need to

work toward that type of sound, to grab hold of it. If they hear one thing and one thing only, such as

legitimate symphony music, then that’s what they’ll end up playing. Now, you listen to Doug Yeo,

who can instantly transition from symphony playing to a big band style just as easily as anything.

You should never say, I don’t want to play this style because that’s the only thing that I like. You

need to play everything. Everything. Or, you won’t work!

Of all the sound tracks on which you’ve played, what is your favorite?

I just got a sheet the other day that said I had played on over 6000 recordings over 50 years. I’m

very proud of that! You know, John Williams is a very dear friend – used to be a trombone player. Do

you remember the album Bottom’s Up? Well, John Williams was the piano player on that album. Yes,

John wrote all the arrangements, too.

Jaws. The movie Jaws is my favorite. As the movie starts, all you see is the ocean and you hear some

very soft, subtle long tones. Very, very soft. You kind of feel, in your chair, that something is about to

happen. You almost want to turn around to see if something is sneaking up on you, it is so very soft.



Of course, I played the violent shark scenes, too, but those soft long tones, early on the movie were

the most dramatic. I have never forgotten the feeling I got from playing on that soundtrack. I just

loved it. I like all of the Jaws pictures, except when the shark got up on deck of the boat and started

eating people!

What do you see in the future of big bands and live orchestras? Where are theyheaded?

I don’t know. I pray for all of the young people that the big bands will come back some day but it will

have to be the young people who bring them back. I don’t know where that’s going to come from.

The college big band is the savior for all of the kids who want to play in commercial music. It’s the

only place they have to play any more.

My young friend down at North Texas State told me that he couldn’t get big band jobs for his best

students, like he used to. It’s just so expensive to put a big band on the road and there isn’t any

market. He said, I just don’t think I’d be doing my students any favors by putting them on the road

because it’s not like it used to be.

We don’t have the big names standing down in front of big bands any more. If you loved Kenton, you

loved his band. If you loved Woody Herman or Tommy Dorsey, it was the same thing. If you loved

the leader, you loved their band. Those opportunities have pretty much dried up. There isn’t much

chance of moving from one band to another like there used to be. There might be one opportunity in

a lifetime and you are forced to stay with it. Remember, there was a time in my life when I had to

stop going out on the road. People want to start families and have normal lives…

What are your thoughts about embouchure shifts?

Well, believe it or not, I have an embouchure shift. Not all over the mouthpiece but I can play a

single embouchure down to about a G pedal tone. From the G pedal tone and down below, with a

single embouchure, I would start to disappear. So, I pivot off the bottom lip and get more of my top

lip into the mouthpiece and then I use a crossover thing where I can play from Eb pedal tone to G

and am able to play a Bb pedal (up or down), AA, AAb, and the rest of the way down. If I hadn’t been

able to do that, I could not have played the F pedal tone with Henry Mancini, when I first went to LA.

The high embouchure thing is what I’m talking about. You can just scream Mancini said, that’s

what I want!

If I hadn’t had the means of doing that, with the embouchure shift, that wouldn’t have happened.

So, I do have an embouchure shift in the pedal register that I can manipulate.

We all know that you sing through your horn but do you sing, yourself?

When I was a little kid, I sang in the choir and I learned to sing words and notes and melodies. That’s

where much of this came from. My brotherinlaw, Vern Grant, had a little band. My first taste of

politics came from my mother. Mother asked Vern, is there any way you can get little Georgie into

your band? Vern said, if George can play a song, I’ll put him in. Vern gave me a songbook and told

me to learn the songs. It wasn’t too hard because I had been singing in the Church choir. Shortly

after that, I heard a Tommy Dorsey album and that ignited me on playing melodies.

Has there been any push to get Meet Mr. Roberts and Bottom’s Up reissued?



Yes, even John Williams tried to get it done. Sony bought the rights from Columbia.

At this point, several of George’s many friends and fans in Coronado recognized himand stopped by to say hello. It would be an understatement to say that George has anadoring audience. In fact, many of the questions that I have asked came from OTJForum members in Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands,Scotland, and Sweden. He has truly reached an international audience.

George, what are your thoughts about breath support and breath control – airflowmanagement?

Kids come up to me all the time and ask these questions. I tell all of my kids that you must always

take as much air as you can – you can’t exhale and start playing. Otherwise, there won’t be anything

there and you start shaking. That’s the fastest way to explain why you need to take a big gut full of

air. If you don’t, everything is going to shake. This explanation really works with kids because, if they

exhale before playing, they have nothing.

What is your favorite aspect of the bass trombone – what do you like most about it?

The sound. I used to get an absolute thrill in a 90piece orchestra, coming in on a low C. You know,

Baahhh! Just one note to lay the foundation for the entire orchestra. I would get a kick out of the

strings, complaining that they had to work their tails off and all I had to play was one note and go

home!

Which players over the years impressed you most with their talent and work ethic?

Joe Howard, Lloyd Ulyate, Dick Nash, Eddie Cusby, Dick Noel, I can go on down the line of guys that I

worked with when I first came out to LA. They were the greatest guys on earth – they taught me

how to play the best trombone players you’ve ever heard in your life but nobody’s ever heard of

them. They were the players in motion pictures, television, radio…all the recordings.

From whom did you learn the most about commercial playing and the commercialmusic industry?

Well, it’s that same group of people I just mentioned. When I first came out to LA, I realized that

every note I played was not going to be a solo. I had to be able to bend because, when you play a

date and have four trombones, they’re going to rotate the lead parts amongst themselves. I had to

be able to bend as each of those guys took the lead part, to support the different way that each one

of them played. That’s key for the bottom of the trombone section, for the bottom of the orchestra. I

had to be the absolute epitome of pitch, to be the foundation for the orchestra and to flow with the

shift in lead players. When the lead player changed, I’d go right along with him.

What major changes have you noticed in big bands and commercial music from whenyou started to where we are today?

I miss the feeling of the big band and the camaraderie I had with the players and personalities. The

incredible vocalists. There’s nothing like standing in front of a big band. Where the heck can you go to

play in front of a big band? Kids these days just don’t have anywhere to learn and there is not really

a viable way to make a living playing that type of music. It’s pathetic that such a large part of our

culture has simply disappeared.

What I miss most is live music and the opportunity to share music with large groups of people.



People used to come out to dance and really made live music a part of their lives.

George’s final thoughts…

I love all of you trombone players and wish you the best of luck. There are many ways to approach

playing the trombone and I have told you my way that has been pretty successful. Put yourself into

this and make some beautiful music. The more of yourself that you dedicate to making beautiful

music, the better you will play and the more enjoyment you will get out of it.

Besides my family, trombone has been the biggest thing for me since the age of twelve. Sing with

your horn and make beautiful music. For yourself and for others. I love all of you kids and just pray

that there will still be a music business for you!

Thank you so much, George, for taking the time away from your busy schedule tospend some time with us! It has been a true honor for me to see you again and tospend this time with you. The Online Trombone Journal readership is mostappreciative of this opportunity to read your thoughts and get to know you better.

Paul Hill is a senior U.S. Naval Officer and bass trombone fanatic who has been playing since 1969. He firstmet George Roberts in 1976, as a member of the National High School Honors Band where George was thefeatured guest artist. Paul currently runs the Naval ROTC Unit at The University of Arizona and resides with hisfamily in Tucson.

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