Monday, June 27, 2016

Music Education Monday:
A trumpet course with Clark Terry

This week for Music Education Monday, here's something that will have special meaning for a lot of St. Louis jazz fans: a short video course in how to play the trumpet from Clark Terry.

Terry, who died last year, was a St. Louis native who spent more than 70 years as a working professional trumpet player, and generally is considered one of the greatest jazz musicians ever to come from this area.

Terry (pictured) also was of the first well-known jazz players to recognize the importance of jazz education for high school and college students, and from the 1970s on, he spent a great deal of time teaching and mentoring young musicians in both formal and informal settings.

Beyond that, summarizing his long and distinguished career in a paragraph or two would be a Herculean task, so if for some reason you are not already familiar with Terry's many accomplishments, please check out StLJN's extensive coverage of him over the past decade.

Today's featured material seen in the embedded window below was recorded in 1981 under the auspices of an organization called The Video Classroom, and is titled simply "Trumpet Course: Beginner - Intermediate with Clark Terry."

It includes nine separate mini-lessons totaling nearly 52 minutes of material, in which Terry is supported by the veteran bassist Major Holly and also interacts with fellow trumpeter Marc Chase Weinstein.

While it definitely is geared toward less experienced players - Terry starts with the basics, identifying the parts of the instrument and the function of each - even veteran trumpeters may find a useful tidbit or two, and just about anyone who likes jazz may enjoy an hour spent with Clark Terry talking about music.

No comments: