Jazz Connection Magazine

Trumpet Great Bobby Shew Hits The Road For Jazz Education, Concert At Chico State

Trumpet great Bobby Shew, is set to appear in concert

with the Chico State Jazz Express on May 14, 2003, and

will conduct two clinics the following day at CSU, Chico.

Shew has been associated with excellence in jazz

education for almost 40 years.

Bobby Shew likes to refer to himself as the most famous unknown trumpet player in the world. Recognized mostly among musicians as one of the finest and most versatile trumpeters in jazz not only in small group settings but for his iron lip as a lead player in the big bands of Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin and Don Meza, among others, Shew's notoriety in recent decades has been forged in the classrooms, being one of the most sought after jazz educators in the world.

"I've never looked to be a super star or anything like that," said Shew, 66, via telephone from his home in Van Nuys, CA. "I prefer to be lesser than great. I don't want to be that visible. The only thing I can do is to stand back and see how greats such as Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and others like them cared about how well they played and then try to do that myself. To care as much as those guys did, that's all I can do."

It's precisely because Shew cares about the music so much that the Grammy-nominated brassman, composer, arranger and recording artist spends a considerable amount of time each year actively involved in the educational system conducting clinics, workshops and Masters classes for high school and college students. His motivation is simple: it's his way of giving back.

"It makes you feel good when you put out the 'help flow' and you get something back for it," Shew said. "It's a great healer for the spirit. It's an inspiration. Every time I work with kids and I see their face brighten up or they play something better or they understand something better, you've done a service. They've had a revelation of sorts that just pops them loose and their talents emerge a little bit more. All of a sudden they see a future and it brightens up their lives. It's a wonderful thing. That's why I like teaching. There's very little money in it, so you got to love it in order to do it."

In addition, Shew considers passing on what he knows to students a moral responsibility, he said.

"I read in a lecture by Gustav Holtz (composer of the neo-symphonic piece, The Planets) where he mentioned how one of the things that is obligatory to any person, not only musicians, but certainly amongst musicians who have learned high levels of craftsmanship in their art, is that they have a moral responsibility to pass on all of the things that they've learned to the next generation. Holtz also stated that for a person to become a good musician and then keep that information to themselves, taking it to the grave without passing it on, borders on criminal. In all this philosophical reading that I was doing, I also came across this quote by someone who wrote: 'The being is only as valuable as he is able and willing to serve.' That's pretty heavy."

Shew epitomizes the word service. In fact, he can be considered a work horse. Up until seven years ago, he averaged about 290 national and international clinics a year. As a result of travel restrictions implemented by the federal government since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Iraqi situation, and less funding for schools, Shew has cut back as a clinician. He speculated that he'll do about 170 clinics this year, which is still a pretty fair amount, he said.

"Work has fallen off a bit for all of us," Shew said. "Luckily, I'm still quite busy. Now that I'm in my 60s, I'm much happier to stay home than I was 20 years ago. At this age, I'm a little more arthritic, I don't move as fast and I'm carrying more pounds than I used to. Everything is a little more uncomfortable for me."

Shew is slated to perform as guest soloist with California State University, Chico's premiere big band, The Jazz X-Press, on Saturday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the university's Harlan Adams Theatre.

For the concert, the Jazz Express is expected to accompany Shew on about eight tunes (some of which will feature his own compositions).

Shew is a return guest to Chico State. He last appearance on campus was four years ago at the invitation of Rocky Winslow, Director of the Jazz Studies Program at CSU, who has known Shew for more than 20 years and was one of his students during the early 1980s.

"It's like bringing Yoda to my jazz program," Winslow said enthusiastically about Shew's upcoming appearance. "He changes your life. Bobby is one of those people who has touched my life. He's my hero. I'm playing trumpet and doing what I do now because of him. Hopefully all the students in the program will meet him and hear what he has to say. He'll touch them. After he leaves, the jazz studies program and the band will be different."

While the axiom "those who can't, teach" may ring true for some musicians, it isn't the case with Shew. Not only can he teach the elements of jazz well, but he can play it with the highest form of sophistication and stimulation while still being able to swing.

"Bobby teaches and expresses himself so well and is also very personable and extremely intelligent," Winslow said. "He has that ability to communicate. He can do what he teaches as well as any one. That's a rare commodity when you have someone who does and teaches. But to have someone on that level - and Bobby's level is ridiculous - we are talking like the very best."

And with the emphasis on jazz education more available now than it was when he first started out, Shew sees a steady increase of musicians filling the ranks who can do and teach, he said.

"There are more and more of those cases these days," Shew said. "A lot of the old timer guys when I was on the road 40 years ago couldn't really teach. I would have to say also that jazz education never really got a start until around 1959 or 1960 when the Stan Kenton clinics were organized. That was pretty much the beginning of jazz education. Over 40 years later, it's still growing and still trying to get a toe-hold in a lot of areas. Some schools and communities still frown on it. There will always be a streak of Puritanical blindness in this world. Like I tell my students, 'The worse you sound, the better I sound!' It's like the dumber my neighbor is, the smarter that makes me." (laughs)

While many musical areas are discussed at these clinics, the one thing Shew tries to instill in his students is to have passion, or to find their "bliss," he said.

"A person who goes through life without deep passion for something lives an empty life," Shew said. "Whatever you do in your life, you owe it to yourself to find something that you are passionate about. There's a difference between being passionate about something and being compulsive about something. I have such a passion about the music. I love jazz music. I realize that not everyone in the world hears it. It's unfortunate that people aren't exposed to jazz more in their childhoods. When you introduce this music to adults after they've grown up listening to Elvis Presley or Metallica for a bunch of years, it's like a foreign language to them. Anytime people don't understand the language being spoken, they become alienated and withdraw. I'm so in love with this music that when I was younger, I tried to convince all my friends and everybody that I was going to hit them with the greatest thing on the planet. They thought I was a complete idiot. It took me a lot of years to come out of my naiveté and realize that I'm not going to change the world or convert the whole world into jazz fans. The people who hear it and are sensitive enough will be drawn to this music and the people who don't, will not. That's fair enough. Jazz is such a challenging music. Jazz requires a tremendous amount of disciplining, dedication, intellect and passion. It's not like rockers sitting around a guitar and slamming on three chords. You have to get deep inside of this music."

Shew was born on March 4, 1941, in Albuquerque, NM. He began playing the guitar at the age of eight

and switched to the trumpet at ten. Mainly self-taught, he was playing trumpet at local dances by the age of 13.

While in high school he played in the school band and it was through that experience that he briefly contemplated a career as a band instructor, he said.

"At that time, I didn't have any thoughts about a professional career in music," Shew said. "I didn't grow up in an environment that presented that as a possibility with a lot of support."

But Shew remained enthusiastic and committed to music. The summer after his graduation from high school, he attended a week-long Stan Kenton jazz clinic at Indiana University, the first year such clinics were being offered. A number of all-star instructors were part of that clinic experience such as drummer Shelly Manne, arranger Russ Garcia, and saxophonist John La Porta, from Woody Herman's First Herd, Shew said.

"Prior to that time, there was no education, period, for me in jazz other than going on the bandstand with the local guys in my home town," Shew said. "There were no books, no courses. The only thing that did exist was a company called 'Music Minus One.' They made a few records with piano, bass and drums, and you could play along on standard tunes. When I went to the Kenton clinic, there were real teachers there. I was lucky enough to be in the top big band and the leader of that band was John LaPorta. (The late LaPorta retired in 2003 from teaching at the Berklee School of Music having taught at the prestigious school for 30 years.) He was one of the first jazz improv teachers back in the 1950s. He was one of the first to try to organize material to be taught in the classrooms. He was way ahead of guys like Jamey Aebersol and Jay Baker. John could actually stand there and show us things about playing chords. I also could actually go to classes and have a guy show me how to arrange for a small group. We had actually had source material at our disposal."

The week spent at the Kenton clinic was filled with epiphanies for the fledgling trumpeter, epiphanies that would later direct him to a life-long career of musical education, he said.

"It turned a lot of things around for me," Shew said. "I came home with this 'energy' within me. It took me up another level of the music and another level of involvement. Every time I picked up the horn to practice, it was a completely different world. I had all this material in my head: Practice this. Learn this scale. Do this, etc. The thing that was nice about it was about 150 kids came from all over the country. For the most part, I got to see where I was at in relation to the other kids my age. I met a sax player at the clinic who took a bus out to Albuquerque and he spent the summer living with me at my house. We put together a quintet and gigged at coffee houses back in the beat generation days."

Bobby Shew, pictured above, in concert. A versatile trumpeter, Shew is one of the

most sought after jazz educators in the world. Shew expects to conduct about 170

clinics this year world wide, he said.

- Photo courtesy of Paul Stephens

While attending college, Shew studied architecture, never giving any serious thought about becoming a professional musician, he said.

"I'm now an architect in a different way when I pick up the horn as it's a matter of design there, too," Shew said. "When you study art, structural design and art composition, that spills over as brush strokes on sound. Playing melodic lines and playing improvisational lines are part of a sound pattern like brush strokes."

Instead of building structures, Shew began building lives, even his own, as he continued to play trumpet in college while also teaching privately, but admitted that he wasn't a very good teacher.

"I didn't know what to do," he said. "I did see some progress and some smiling faces once-in-a-awhile. Sometimes those smiling faces came when I played basketball with them instead of the trumpet. You have to get inside of a kid's world to get him to get into your world, too. That's one of the first things I learned. If I shot baskets with him for 10 minutes, then he would come in and play trumpet with me for 15 minutes. I'd rather have 15 minutes of happy time with a kid than forcing him to sit there for 30 minutes doing something he didn't want to do."

Scrapping a career in architecture for a career in music, Shew then spent three years as the jazz trumpet soloist in the famed North American Radar Air Defense (NORAD) multi-service band before joining the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under the direction of saxophonist Sam Donahue.

Upon the recommendation of trumpeter Bill Chase, Shew joined Woody Herman's band in 1965, staying a year.

"Woody's band was very popular during the time I was in it," Shew said. "We played all over the world at the greatest jazz festivals. I wasn't doing much solo work because there were already two strong players in the trumpet section. The band had some great musicians such as Nat Pierce on piano, Sal Nistico on sax, Jake Hanna on drums, Bill Chase on trumpet. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't surrounded by all those guys."

While Herman's band was tops, the "Woodchopper" himself wasn't the easiest man to get along with, Shew said.

"Woody was a difficult man for us to work with," Shew recalled. "He could be OK, but he was a loner. I never really got a lot of friendly moments with Woody."

Shew then worked with drumming legend Buddy Rich and his explosive big band from 1966-67.

"Being in Buddy's band was one of the greatest experiences I had musically because of the kind of person he was, the way he played the drums, and the energy he had," Shew said.

"Buddy took me from the third chair which was the jazz solo chair and moved me to the lead trumpet chair," Shew said. "I said to Buddy, 'I can't do this. I'm not a lead trumpet player.' He said, 'Don't give me any crap. Go home and get your chops together. You come back here tomorrow as my lead trumpet player.' Part of me was terrified while the other part of me was excited as hell. I switched mouthpieces and became a lead player. Buddy believed in me more than I believed in myself."

Although Rich was a gifted musician with a very volatile disposition, he developed a reputation as being a task master, Shew said.

"I'd rather have a difficult leader like Buddy Rich than some whimpy guy who didn't create anything with the music," Shew said.

It was while as a member of Rich's band that Shew got his first taste as a clinician. He was invited back to his high school alma mater as a guest artist with the school's jazz band, he said.

"I had to give thirty-minute private instructions to the trumpet players as part of the deal," Shew said. "I took it seriously. I offered some guidance and saw some progress and the students walked out of there with smiles on their faces."

After leaving Rich, Shew settled in Las Vegas playing in various show bands, developing a reputation as a strong lead player. He's also worked with such pop stars as Della Reese, Robert Goulet, Paul Anka, Steve Allen, Tom Jones, and even Elvis Presley, among others.

In 1973, Shew moved to the Los Angeles area and began getting reinvolved as a jazz player and doing studio work. He spent time with the groups of Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Horace Silver, as well as numerous big bands such as Bill Hollman, Louis Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin, Oliver Nelson, Bill Berry, Nat Pierce-Frank Capp Juggernaut, Ed Shaughnessy, Terry Gibbs, Benny Goodman, Maynard Ferguson, Neal Hefti, Don Menza, and Bob Florence.

As a sideman, Shew has played on more than 1,000 recordings in the jazz and pop genres, and for film and television. His recordings for television include Hawaii Five-O, Streets Of San Francisco, Bob Newhart Show, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Midnight Specials, Don Kirschner Rock Concert, Happy Days, Laverne And Shirley, and Eight Is Enough. His work on movie soundtracks include Grease 1 and II, Rocky 1 and II, Six Pack, The Muppet Movie, The Drivers and Taxi. Besides playing, Shew also had minor acting roles in films and television.

During this period, Shew also became a leader recording many of his own albums including One In A Million (Seabreeze Jazz), Tribute To The Masters (Double-Time, 1995), and Outstanding In His Field, which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1980, while, Heavy Company, was awarded the Jazz Album Of The Year in 1983. He has released several recent albums for the MAMA Foundation including Playing With Fire (with Tom Harrell), Heavyweights (with the late Carl Fontana), and Salsa Caliente.

While Shew enjoys working with big bands, he prefers playing in small groups, he said.

"In a small group you have much more freedom for creative interaction," Shew said. "I love big bands, too. There's a real thrill about a big band when it's really swinging. It's like the Super Chief coming down the track."

During the 1980s, Shew hosted a weekly television show for three years in New Zealand entitled, Just Jazz. The format of the show consisted of Shew talking about the different components and styles of jazz, interviewing guest artists and performing with his own small group as well as with the guest artists, he said.

"I became very, very visible in that country," Shew said. "I couldn't get an ice cream cone without someone coming up to me. It's nice to be known, but after a while, it gets to be a pain-in-the-ass. People loose consideration for you. They don't care if you have an ice cream cone that you want to eat. That's one of the reasons why I don't want to be that visible."

As a Yamaha performing artist and clinician, Shew has also been active on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Jazz Educator's for 16 years. He's a former professor of trumpet at CSU, Northridge, and former adjunct professor at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA. He holds Artist in Residence chairs at music schools in Canada, Holland, Austria and Germany. He authors numerous articles of educational interest in various trade magazines. He is president of his own music publishing company, Bolikes Music Publishing, and he is currently writing a trumpet tutor for CD-ROM.

Always one who loves heading into territory, Shew also keeps busy these days producing albums and arranging scores for various artists, he said.

"Apparently, some people think I have a talent for arranging certain things and producing," Shew said. "They send me their tunes and they want me to fix them. I have a pretty good knack for the ability to look at a tune and see what's wrong with it or what doesn't work. I do a little re-write or change a chord or two here and there. I then organize a group, go into a studio to record, and 'bing,' there's an album!"

And if that isn't enough, Shew dabbles as an inventor as well. He's designed a double-belled trumpet called the "Shew-Horn;" a cut-away mouthpiece for trumpets called a "Visualizer" that is used as a teaching device; and the Shew Soloist Mute, a full-bodied sounding, in-tune Harmon style mute.

"Sales of the Soloist Mute are going real well," Shew said. "It's nice to see people enjoying a product of mine."

For information about his inventions as well as articles, CD purchases and clinic schedules, log on to Shew's website at www.bobbyshew.com

Although he logs vast amounts of mileage annually on a sometimes grueling tour schedule, Shew wouldn't have it any other way. Even though his home is paid for, he doesn't mind living out of a suit case two-thirds of the year. In fact, he thrives on it and is proud to be known as a "Road Rat," he said.

"I don't like to let grass grow underneath my feet," Shew with a laugh. "Everybody has their own point of view about the road. The road is a magical place. Some people have called me a 'Road Rat.' To some, that may mean a funky old guy who lives on the road. To me, if someone calls me a 'Road Rat,' I take that as a compliment. There's art to being a 'Road Rat.' A lot of kids try to go out on the road but they can't handle it. When you get out on the road and really live out there, the camaraderie that happens amongst the guys in the band living and sleeping on the bus, only going into a hotel maybe twice a week, taking a sponge bath in the restroom at the Vet's Hall in Wheeling, WV, is so fantastic. That experience spills over into the band. Everybody tells their little stories or talks about the music. You develop friendships that you never forget.

"When you are out on the road, the primary target is to get on that bandstand and have the music just swinging its tail off! Because we're dealing with an art form, all your moods and emotions, in fact, your whole being is very hyper-sensitive, which are all part of the aesthetics of working the music. Living on the road, you have to be able to prioritize the music over everything. That includes the fact that you have to sleep on a bus, or that you have to eat at a truck stop, or you have to wear that pair of socks an extra day, Oh, my God! Those things don't matter when you go on the bandstand. That's a true 'Road Rat.' It's someone who knows all the tricks, how to plan ahead, knows which states are dry and buys two jugs of booze in the state before. You always cover yourself. You know how to put your pants between the mattress and the box spring while taking a nap on them so that they are pressed when you get up. I know all those tricks. I love the road and I have a humongous amount of friends from all over the world from all the years I've been out there. They are everywhere from Slovakia to Malta to Chicago to Australia. If I don't go out on the road, I'm out of touch with my friends. E-mails are not enough. I need to see these people regularly. Some I see every year, some I see every couple of years."

If Shew doesn't travel to do clinics, play concerts and club dates, then he loses touch with the reality of what this music is all about, he said.

"The world is not for me to sit and teach," Shew said. "The world is made from another player who teaches. I'm not a teacher who gets an occasional chance to play. Jazz is my whole life. It's like a religion to me. This music is the most challenging and most fun thing I've ever really done in my life."

While the music itself is like a life form that breaths, Shew's primary focus as a teacher is to try to tap into students' imaginations so that their God-given talents will emerge, he said.

"How you improve and how you create is an imagination-thing," Shew said. "It's very spiritual, very right-brained, very conceptual. It's not a teachable thing. You can't teach someone to be a great artist. You can teach him about art, but you can't teach him to be an artist. In the final analysis, the student will be the architect of their own life. They will play in the way they've applied themselves. If I hear somebody on stage and he plays crappy, I know exactly how he's applied himself in his life. There are no restrictions on a thing called talent. My definition of talent is this: Talent is a lack of barriers. All people seem to have little barriers whether it be mental, physical or emotional. We have fears about playing in front of people or physical things like weak muscles in the face, lazy streaks or ethic problems, etc. For example, if you can play in the key of C but can't play in the key of C-sharp, that's a barrier. If you practice in an area where you can do something to address one of your barriers, that barrier gets diminished or knocked down and talent emerges. It means you are given the keys to the city. You can be as talented as you want to be."

That's why education and opportunities for growth are so important in developing talent, Shew argued.

"Whose to say how much talent a person has?" Shew said. "If the environment doesn't offer opportunities for inspiration, everybody thinks that person has no talent. There are a tremendous amount of wasted lives out there who are very talented people and who don't think they are, nor do we, because they are never given an opportunity to bring that talent out."

While Shew helps to provide opportunities for talent to be nurtured through his clinics, he also reminds his students that he himself is devoted to the life-long study of music. Such studies in addition to talent development need to be tempered with humility, he said.

"One of the most valuable things any human can have is humility," Shew said. "It keeps everything balanced. If somebody comes up to you after playing a concert and tells you that you're great, thank them. If you believe them for one second, your stuck. Otherwise you'll think that you are great and then your talent starts to fall. You'll loose the search and you'll loose the humility of being a student, someone who reverences the higher standards of this music."

Jazz Connection Magazine . April 2007 . www.jazzconnectionmag.com

*** Trumpeter Bobby Shew will be the guest artist performing with California State University, Chico's premiere big band, The Jazz X-Press, on Saturday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the university's Harlan Adams Theatre. Tickets for the concert are $15 Adult; $13 Senior: $6 Student/Child; $6 Chico State/Butte College Students (General Seating). For ticket information call (530) 898-6333. ***