Brass Bulletin No. 42

Jean-Pierre Mathez

One magazine disappeared as another opened its pages, turning economic necessity into a rare act of editorial solidarity that reshaped the brass press.

Jean-Pierre Mathez

A forgotten anecdote places one of music's greatest figures in startling conflict with the trumpet, raising unexpected questions about fear, sound and musical sensibility.

Peter Damm

Performance once depended as much on informed invention as on written notes, and early horn concertos still carry that forgotten freedom in plain sight.

Michel Laplace

Before Louis Armstrong became the defining figure, jazz already carried competing traditions of tone, style and technique shaped by cornet players across New Orleans and beyond.

Thomas Aitken

An international brass section takes shape in post-war New Zealand, where orchestral careers mingle with touring bands, immigration and some remarkably unconventional detours.

Getting started

Jeffrey Agrell

For the classically trained horn player, jazz replaces the security of the printed page with listening, swing and improvisation—and a different kind of discipline.

The Distinguished Soviet Trumpeter and Teacher

Yuri Usov

Between Soviet military bands, the Bolshoi and the Moscow Conservatory, Yeryomin helped shape a trumpet tradition in which virtuosity remained a means, not an end.