Jazz trombonist Harold Betters, 84, has played with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong

Pittsburgh jazz legend, Harold Betters

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Jazz trombonist Harold Betters will bring his vast catalog of music to Irwin, Penn. next Thursday for a live performance during the summer's first Art & Jazz Night.

Betters, a Connellsville resident, described himself as a lifelong musician. He first picked up the trombone when he was 7 years old.
"I come from a musical family with five boys and two girls," Betters said. "My dad played violin, and taught us to play, and we all got instruments."
Betters played in the Connellsville High School marching band, and upon graduation, he joined several local marching bands before joining the Army. He served during the Korean conflict.
While in the Army, Betters became a member of the U.S. Army Band, where he said he learned how to actually listen to music.
"Before that band, I couldn't play without (sheet) music right in front of me, so they taught me how to listen to the music to play," Betters said.
Betters went on to the Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y., after he left the army, in hopes of one day becoming a high school marching band instructor.
After he graduated from Ithaca, he spent one year at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. During that time, Betters found himself performing on stage with several notable musicians, including Herbie Jones, who played trumpet with Duke Ellington's big band.
"I learned how to improvise during that time, and I also learned that, to get a job, you had to play music for people to dance to," Betters said. "So I had to listen to jazz numbers, and learn how to play them."
When Betters came back to the Pittsburgh region, he played in the Jerry Betters Quartet, with his brother.
Although he stayed with his brother's band for five years, Betters said he was never happy.
"He always wanted to play slow songs for all the girls, but I liked to play jump numbers," Betters said. "So I started my own band."
Betters' band played at several clubs throughout the region, but he found his home at the Encore, in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood, where he played Mondays through Saturdays.
Eventually, Betters' reputation grew. He made appearances on several television shows, including the Merv Griffin Show and three stints on the Mike Douglas Show.
After his appearance on Griffin's show, he went to California, where he played with jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong.
Then Betters and his quartet toured with Ray Charles for two months, he said.
Although he toured and traveled to play television shows, Betters made sure to keep his job at the Encore. He attributes his success to the club, where he built the majority of his fan base.
"I like to play where people really enjoy me and show it," Betters said. "My fans have been good to me, and I have a great following."
Betters continues to play shows throughout the Pittsburgh region on a regular basis with his quartet, which includes bassist and vocalist Bob Insko, keyboardist John Burgh and drummer Cecil Brooks.
Next Thursday's performance marks Betters' third time playing Irwin's Art & Jazz Nights, which is organized by the Irwin Business & Professionals Association. It's become a tradition for Betters to call the IBPA before they can call him, according to Gail Macioce, who plans to sing with Betters' quartet.
"He tells us he loves the venue so much, and that's apparent whenever you talk to him and watch him perform," Macioce said. "Harold Betters is the epitome of a jazz persona because he has the musical ability and can really engage the crowd."
Macioce said the IBPA is honored to have Betters come into the borough each summer for its Art & Jazz Nights.
And Betters couldn't be happier to oblige, he said.
"The people are just wonderful, and I just love playing for people when I can see people dancing and they're really enjoying themselves," Betters said. "Don't ever think that I won't play anymore because of my age.
"The only way I'm going to retire is if I come to a point where I physically cannot play no more."

Thanks Harold. A lot of us veteran trombonists feel the same way.

Trombonist Marshall Gilkes "Sound Stories" | Altsounds.com News

Trombonist Marshall Gilkes "Sound Stories" | Altsounds.com News:
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Trombonist-composer Marshall Gilkes makes a major statement on Sound Stories (March 6, Alternate Side Records). Working with a sympathetic, immensely talented quintet featuring saxophonist Donny McCaslin, pianist Adam Birnbaum, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and drummer Eric Doob, Gilkes takes his innovative composing and lyrical, hard-swinging soloing to new levels of excitement and refinement.

"I like an orchestral shape in my music-with ups and downs-as opposed to a flat line where everything moves with the same intensity," says Gilkes. "I try to see the big picture when I write. Some of the pieces on the album have nine pages of music. They're through-composed, although I do allow a lot of freedom."

A strong thread connects the sections of each intricate composition. Even as tempos shift and time signatures change, the parts clearly relate to the whole. Gilkes conceived "Presence," "Anxiety," and "Armstrong" as two-part pieces where the sections fit together to form a complete unit. "On 'Presence,' there's a frantic first statement of the melody, which sets up Donny's solo," Gilkes explains. "The contrasting section for piano is through-composed, although Adam has lots of freedom to embellish the written melody and play with the chords. Part 2 begins with a variation on the first melody and ends with a recapitulation of the opening."

Gilkes likes improvisation and composition to form an organic whole. "I want each solo to support the written form," he says. "The solos should build, and set up the next part of the composition, to cue it in." Gilkes intensifies the beauty and intimacy of "Downtime" in his solo, building to a ravishing climax that signals the return of the lovely melody. The long, thematically coherent lines of his improvisation on "Slashes" contrast the short, fragmented phrases of the composition.

Closely integrating composition and improvisation demands special musicians, and Gilkes surrounds himself with players attuned to his ideas. Pianist Birnbaum and Gilkes display empathy and craftsmanship in their duet on "Bare." Bassist Nakamura and Gilkes tell superlative musical stories in the beginning of Gilkes' solo on "Anxiety Part 2," and the bassist's lyrical gifts are evident during his solo on "Downtime." McCaslin presents his fiery presence on "Presence," and "Armstrong" (named for Gilkes' late grandfather, not the legendary jazz trumpeter). The music was polished during the band's week long engagement at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola just prior to recording Sound Stories. They navigate Gilkes' complex charts and compositional intent with grace and vitality while interjecting their voices into the music.

Gilkes was born in Camp Springs, Maryland, and spent his childhood in many different parts of the United States traveling with his father, a musician in the Air Force, and his mother, a singer. He began playing trombone at the age of ten and hasn't looked back.
A graduate of The Juilliard School as well as Interlochen Arts Academy, Gilkes was a 2003 finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. He made his recording debut in 2004 with Edenderry of which JazzTimes wrote, "He sounds fine on the ballads, where he plays with the slightest hint of terminal vibrato, but his ripe tone and aggressive soloing on the faster numbers really stand out." Jazz Review called his 2008 quintet recording, Lost Words, "one of those rare releases that has so much good music on it the listener can be ensured of solid artistic sentiments and beautiful playing throughout its entire length."

He has performed at jazz festivals and venues throughout Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and taught and presented master classes at institutions around the world including The Banff Center, Berklee College of Music, and on behalf of the Juilliard School. In addition to his work as a leader, he has performed or recorded with Richard Bona, Edmar Castaneda, Billy Cobham, Dave Douglas, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, and the Village Vanguard Orchestra. He is featured on Maria Schneider's Grammy Award winning CD Sky Blue, among many others, including CDs by John Fedchock, David Berger and Edmar Castaneda. After living and working in New York for twelve years, he moved to Cologne, Germany where he is a member of the WDR Big Band. He is an artist for Edwards Instruments.

"I'm trying to become a more refined player, to really hone my ideas as a composer and improviser so I can play exactly what I want," Gilkes says. "Sometimes I feel like I'm not very good with words, so I'm trying to play what I can't put into words."

Riffing on Ray

Hitting the road with soul icon gave trombonist her big break

By  Kevin Joy

The Columbus Dispatch Sunday January 22, 2012 11:59 AM

After performing two nights in 1995 as a Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra featured guest, Ray Charles inquired about a musician whose smooth, dulcet tones had caught his ear.

“Who was that guy on trombone?” Charles asked.

That was no guy — nor was the player a member of the ensemble.

Sarah Morrow, a Pickerington native, had been hired for the back-to-back concerts, the biggest gigs that the 27-year-old had landed since leaving a New Jersey arts-administration job to pursue music full time.

Unaware of Charles’ interest, Morrow approached his manager after the first show.

“I just had this overwhelming feeling,” she said, “that I needed to ask to audition for his band.”

As expected, she received a swift rebuff — until the brassy hopeful mentioned that she had played lead trombone that night.

“He stopped, turned and said, ‘That was you?’  ” Morrow recalled. “Then he said, ‘So you think you can handle the road?’

“A few days later, I was in L.A.”

Not only did Morrow land the break of a lifetime, playing for two years with a 22-piece orchestra in locales ranging from Barbados to Japan, but she also became Charles’ first (and only) female musician — the significance of which took time for the graduate of Ohio University in Athens to realize.

On Friday and Saturday in the Lincoln Theatre, Morrow, 42, will celebrate her mentor’s memory by joining the Columbus Jazz Orchestra for the show "Hit the Road, Jack: The Music of Ray Charles."

Columbus bassist Roger Hines, who toured and recorded exclusively with Charles in the 1980s, will also play with the ensemble.

Although Charles died in 2004, his repertoire endures — from the irresistible boogie-woogie groove of Mess Around to the sweet, soulful opening notes of Georgia on My Mind. The extensive Charles catalog includes gospel, blues and even country.

The material “has a way of bringing the spiritual world to us on an everyday level,” Morrow said. “He puts everything that he has into every note.

“I viewed him really like a grandfather.

“I think I probably got more face time than normal,” she said. “He was concerned about the fact I was a young woman and made it clear that if anyone messed with me they had to answer to him.”

Yet life on the road, in particular among the company of raucous male musicians — and some territorial members of Charles’ backing singers known as the Raylettes — wasn’t easy.

“It was like the army,” recalled Hines, an adjunct music professor, 59, at Capital University in Bexley.

“It was rowdy.”

In Morrow’s memory remains fierce dialogue with a Raylette who declared that the coveted trombone spot should have gone to a black woman.

Today, when thinking of the encounter, Morrow remembers something that Charles once said to her during an international flight: “If you let your emotions get the best of you, you’re not good for anything.”

“In the end,” Morrow said, “the beauty was that the music always wins out.”

These days, she also focuses on more practical pieces of Charles’ guidance: remembering to put proper space between notes, knowing when to use softer volumes and understanding the importance of timing.

Such pointers helped Morrow launch a solo career, which included overseas pairings with jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Duke Ellington Orchestra as well as with Columbus musicians Foley (a bassist, who goes by one name, who played for Miles Davis and recorded on the Motown label) and pianist Bobby Floyd.

Paris, where she was later scouted by a European jazz label, has been Morrow’s home for the past 14 years, although she plans to move back to the United States this year to be closer to her family.

A more recent engagement was a string of dates with pop trailblazer Cyndi Lauper and her “ Memphis Blues” tour. In the bedroom-turned-studio that Morrow uses when in Ohio is a signed, framed photo of Lauper. The trombonist gushed about having her makeup applied by the funky True Colors chanteuse.

Morrow’s success, her supporters say, is the result of more than that chance conversation in Dayton.

“She inspires you,” said Floyd, 57, of the Northwest Side. “She allows that creativity to happen.”

The performer remains a source of pride for Pickerington schools, said Mike Sewell, who served as band director during Morrow’s middle- and high-school years.

“The horn is an extension of her,” said Sewell, 54. “These things aren’t taught. It’s a gift. She’s always had that.”

Columbus Jazz Orchestra Artistic Director Byron Stripling, a trumpeter who once played some shows with Charles in the mid-1990s, noted Morrow’s toughness.

Being the “woman on the bus,” Stripling said, “that’s dues-paying. . . . She certainly won those guys’ hearts, minds and musical respect.”

The chutzpah began early. At the tender age of 4, Morrow became entranced with the trombone after attending a performance of The Music Man. When she was later assigned to the clarinet, she lied to her parents and claimed that her orthodontist had said reed instruments would harm her braces. She got her trombone.

These days, Morrow is preparing for the spring debut of her contemporary jazz album Elektric Air and remains at work co-producing a Louis Armstrong tribute album by five-time Grammy winner Dr. John.

The 71-year-old New Orleans blues rocker called Morrow “a bad-ass trombone player . . . who threw me a whole gang of loops.”

All opportunities, though, seem to circle back to the powerful influence of Charles.

Morrow played trombone as part of the opening music heard in the Academy Award-winning biopic Ray (2004), but she still can’t bring herself to watch the film.

Perhaps even more emotional than performing his tunes is playing them with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, an ensemble that Morrow worshipped as a teenager.

“They are the reason I started playing jazz,” she said. “I do what I do because of the CJO.”

Morrow hopes that listeners find inspiration next weekend.

After all, as she can attest, only a few notes might be needed to get someone’s attention.

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JONATHAN QUILTER | DISPATCH

Pickerington native Sarah Morrow, who has played trombone in venues throughout the world

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