George Carr

I first got into jazz music as a performer. As a high school student in the '80s, I was a talented trombone player, performing with the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony Youth Orchestra, and other educational ensembles. But my high school band director, Paul Parks, was a trumpet player who couldn't say enough good things about his heroes, which were mostly high-note trumpeters like Bill Chase, Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen, and that sort. I enjoyed listening to those guys, but I soon found myself annoyed by their pop-music aspirations, especially after I discovered Wynton Marsalis and his attitude toward jazz as a repertory art form that doesn't need "updating" to be great music. I joined my high school "stage band" and started playing swing music, which immediately grabbed me as both a performer and a listener. I started searching out the more jazz-oriented recordings from the trumpet masters; as an example, I lost interest in Maynard's "Primal Scream" and went hunting for his "Birdland Dream Band" records instead. And the '80s were an amazing era for big-band music: soon I was buying CDs as concert merch from working jazz bands, like the touring "ghost" bands of Count Basie and Woody Herman, and through mail-order from bands with even less commercial appeal, like Frank Mantooth and Tom Kubis. By the end of high-school, I was a full-fledged jazz nut, and I performed with local jazz bands led by Rick Brunetto and Vaughan Wiester during my senior year. I was recruited into the musicians' union by master trombonist (and head of the musicians' local) Tommy Dale, and spent my college years studying and playing the trombone--earning a Bachelor of Music degree--and gigging with jazz bands around central Ohio. The rest is history: I've been playing jazz trombone for 30+ years now, and have shared the stage with many great players, including old-school masters like Phil Woods, Conte Candoli, and Terry Gibbs.