[Trombone-l] Procol Harum

[Kenny Carter]

I enjoyed your story immensely, Sharman. Thanks!  I also remember the Procol
Harum album...I can't remember if the radio version was the live version or
if there was a studio version, but I had the Live 8-track version.

On one of the songs, I remember the lyric was supposed to be:
"And though the crowd clapped furiously, they could not get the joke."

However, the lead singer misspeaks (mis-sings?) and says:
"And though the crowd crapped furiously, they could not get the joke."

That was left on the album...

Kenny Carter

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-----Original Message-----
From: Sharman King [mailto:sharman at sharmanking.ca]
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 1:24 PM
To: trombone-l at samford.edu
Subject: [Trombone-l] Sharman King embarrassing audition story - 2nd try


Hello list

During our exciting Gilbert Kaplan discussion I mentioned I would post
my (now embarrassing) but absolutely true story of my inexplicably
successful audition for the Edmonton Symphony. I wrote this as a letter
to Doug Yeo some years ago when I was thanking him for posting his
helpful notes on various excerpts, including Till Eulenspiegel:
http://www.yeodoug.com/resources/handbook/image_files/text_files/till2.html

Hello, Doug

Thank you for your series of excepts, and most particularly for your
recent Till Eulenspiegel. Your scholarly approach will serve to remind
trombonists why we play the notes we do, and should remind many players
(and teachers) that we should not "simply pound away at eighth notes."

However, my reason for writing you is to document the hilarious, but
from the perspective of thirty years later somewhat embarrassing,  story
of my audition for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

This story could not happen now, and it shows how far orchestral
standards and the bass trombone have come in the past three decades.

After I graduated from UBC (where my teacher was Jimmy Coombes, ex-Ted
Heath and LPO bass trombonist) I went on the road with Buddy Rich. After
a few months of the memory-filling antics of a road band made up largely
of Boston musicians I returned to Vancouver and the relative sanity of a
six night a week job in a sing-along club, Your Fathers Mustache. (The
misspelling was for trademark reasons.) For a year I played in a crazy
band - two banjos (or banjo and washboard), trombone and tuba. I was the
tuba player, but after a few months I got lazy and started to play on a
bass trombone with a pickup and a home-brew octave divider. The job was
a lot of fun, and, in the time-honoured tradition of Vancouver trombone
players, involved lots of beer.

Then I got a job teaching Music Theory, Lower Brass, Electronic Music
and a Stage Band at the University of Calgary. The day before we moved
to Calgary was my last night at Your Fathers Mustache and the band and
the club sent me off in good fashion, although my memory of the
specifics is understandably foggy.

I was green an the university teaching game, and I didn't understand
what an extraordinary load I had - thirty hours of teaching, well over
twice the normal load. I found myself absolutely snowed under with class
prep and teaching and I must confess I left my trombone in its box for
the first six weeks. I didn't even play in lessons.

One night in the middle of October, 1972 I got a phone call from the
Manager of the Edmonton Symphony wondering if I would audition for a
bass trombone vacancy that had suddenly opened. They were under
considerable pressure and they wanted to do the audition the next night
in Edmonton.

Knowing that my (much younger) face would work well for about the first
ten minutes after a long lay-off, the next day we simply put the
trombone in the car and drove north for three hours. The audition was at
the CBC Studio on 85th Street, and I walked into the radio recording
studio and saw a music stand in the middle of the room and a table with
four men seated behind it about ten feet away.

Auditions have changed. There was no screen, there were no other
candidates, and there had been no publicity.

I learned later the reason for the urgency of the audition. The recent
history of the Edmonton Symphony trombone section included the very
physical settling of a difference of musical opinion between a now-ex
Principal trombonist and the Conductor and a sabatical leave by the bass
trombonist, Malcolm Forsythe who subsequently returned as Principal.
Then they were stuck, because there were no other bass trombonists in
the city.

Anyway, at the time I did not know any of the background. The panel was
Conductor Lawrence Leonard, Orchestra Manager Duncan McKercher,
Contractor and Principal Second Marlin Wolfe and Concertmaster Charlie
Dobias. They gave me some standard excerpts which I think I performed
with some accuracy if not a lot of volume.

The came Till Eulenspiegel. On the best day, I might be the slowest bass
trombonist in captivity. After not playing for six weeks I was not only
the slowest, but the most range and dynamic challenged player
imaginable. And I would have had trouble with Till on the best day - it
didn't really feature prominently in either Buddy's Band or Your Fathers
Mustache.

So I played it, but fairly carefully in both speed and dynamic. Some
musical genius on the committee asked for it louder and faster, so I
played it faster and a bit louder.

I was really sweating the high "A".

The Conductor slammed his hand on the table and said, "Louder, dammit!"

Louder, dammit! I played. All the way up the scale I worried about the
"A" - at this volume and speed I was setting myself up for a world class
crash-and-burn on the "A".

I played the A with a funny crinkling noise, unlike any other
crash-and-burn I'd ever experienced, and I saw something fly out of the
end of my horn. (It was a Mt. Vernon 50B, in case you'd like to
replicate the experiment.)

The something described a trajectory of a short arc and landed on the
floor in front of me. It rolled around and as it slowed and settled it
became evident to even the least musical literate of our small group
that the something was a beer cap. Labatt's Blue, for the sake of
historical accuracy.

I was awestruck, mortified and silent. Not so our exalted panel. After
about a half second the snickers started. In no time it was uncontrolled
laughter, and became worse every time someone opened their mouth to speak.

It took about five minutes for composure to regain control. Even then,
there were giggles every time someone tried to say anything. Any
thoughts of asking me to play more were mercifully forgotten, and they
HAD to hire me.

I played in the Edmonton Orchestra for the next five years, commuting
from Calgary for two years and then from Vancouver. It was a wonderful
experience. The strings were sensational for a small orchestra, and the
fellowship of the orchestra was extraordinary although I hadn't had
enough professional experience at the time to understand how rare that
was. We did great repertoire and playing with Malcolm Forsythe was
thrilling. He's now a renowned composer, but at the time he had just
arrived from South Africa. He was an experienced player, definitely the
finest alto trombonist I'd ever heard. He also had a photographic
memory, so asking him about an upcoming piece was amazing. He'd play
over all the parts for the section, not from memory but from knowledge.
What an education!

We even had a "Top Ten" record, Conquistador with Procul Harem. We did
about fifty one hour TV shows with middle-of-the-road stars, and I still
play some of them to remind me of how well we were able to do things in
one take back then. Coincidentally, last night I played a video disc of
one of the shows with Ray Charles.

Anyway, thanks for provoking the memories!

Sharman King

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Sharman King
632 West Broadway
Vancouver BC V5Z 1G1
phone           604 873 0661 ext 7
                800 929 5711
cel             604 263 4419
fax             604 876 5711
sharman at bookwarehouse.ca
sharman at sharmanking.ca
sharman at istar.ca
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