DEM BONES
posted by James Reel
Courtesy of oboeinsight, here’s a link to a human-interest item that supports your parents’ notion that nobody with any good sense becomes a professional musician. This trombonist, at least, suffers an obvious sense deficit. It’s hard to resist an article that begins like this:
Paolo Esperanza, bass-trombonist with the Simphonica Mayor de Uruguay, in a misplaced moment of inspiration decided to make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired as part of the orchestra's concert. In complete seriousness he placed a large, ignited firecracker, which was equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminium straight mute and then stuck the mute into the bell of his quite new Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.Alas, this story is entirely apocryphal, right down to the conductor being blasted into the front rows of the auditorium. But what does it tell us about trombonists that it sounds like the sort of thing one of them would do?
Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through bandages on his mouth …
