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Does anyone know (even if even part of this is true, haven't done any research myself) :

- if Arnold Jacobs was ever away from the CSO for a season due to respiratory illness, and...

- if so, who was his primary substitute during that time, and...(finally)

- whether Arnold Jacobs ever had a lung removed?

Josh Stanley
(I've re-worded this question to clarify)

Jacobs did not have a lung removed.

well I am not an expert, but Roger Rocco did regularly play along with jacobs when it called for two tubas...and I believe he did some subbing too..... dont know the deatils about the lung and all that

Thanks for clearing up that legend. Thought it sounded a little bit crazy.

Turns out, since Rocco was one of his students, I am in the Jacobs tuba-lineage. something to make me happy!

harold wrote:On a man his size, he would have had in excess of 6 liters of lung capacity. It is not even remotely possible to produce this with only one lung. It would have had to stretch so far as to be useless.

Of course, the one-lung thing is an urban legend effectively debunked by Brian Fredericksen in Song and Wind. But it confirmed that Jacobs had lung disease at some level and a reduced capacity because of it.

But the notion that Jacobs had and required a 6-liter vital capacity counters much of what he said about himself and the York instrument. In his 1973 master class, he claimed that he had less than four liters vital capacity as a result of his age, body type, and weight. That was 15 years before his retirement. Two or three years before his retirement, I heard him play the Mahler 5th Symphony when the CSO was on tour in Austin. His vital capacity must have diminished more since 1973, but he had no trouble at all making a huge, resonant sound on the York.

He also described his York on many occasions as an instrument with extreme efficiency, using such descriptions as "old man's tuba" and "4/4 goes in and 6/4 comes out".

Rick "thinking the facts are in the record" Denney

tubafour wrote:Turns out, since Rocco was one of his students, I am in the Jacobs tuba-lineage. something to make me happy!

We are all in the Jacobs lineage in one way or another. His impact on tuba pedagogy has been so comprehensive that nearly all current teachers use something of what he taught.

Rick "who has had teachers who studied with Jacobs, and teachers whose teachers studied with Jacobs" Denney

Roger Rocco teaches at our local university, and from what I understand from his students, Mr. Rocco says that near the end the capacity was actually down to something like less than two liters, though that may be blown up a little bit by legend.

Also, about the subbing thing, Mr. Rocco would go to the concerts and play when Mr. Jacobs was too sick to do so himself.