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Fellow Honkers,

I hope this isn't something that is too embarrassing. I love this instrument and I want to pursue it as far as I'm able to. Now that I'm nearly in college, I'm realizing that there is so much I don't know and I feel like I should already know it. I tried searching for a list of "best" tuba players or "most famous" ones, but I'm not sure it's really what I'm looking for.

Would anyone be willing to share their list of "must-know" players? I want to jump right in and listen to as many as I can so that I have a more informed perspective in the community.

Thanks,
Scrub

Scrub wrote:Fellow Honkers,

I hope this isn't something that is too embarrassing. I love this instrument and I want to pursue it as far as I'm able to. Now that I'm nearly in college, I'm realizing that there is so much I don't know and I feel like I should already know it. I tried searching for a list of "best" tuba players or "most famous" ones, but I'm not sure it's really what I'm looking for.

Would anyone be willing to share their list of "must-know" players? I want to jump right in and listen to as many as I can so that I have a more informed perspective in the community.

Thanks,
Scrub

I am highly-biased toward the Los Angeles players over the years because I grew up in that region in the 1940-50's. Thus, I would pick Roger Bobo, Tommy Johnson, Jim Self, Norm Pearson, Gene Pokorny, and several others that can be heard on movie sound tracks and Los Angeles Philharmonic recordings.

Ace

I recommend Chris Olka, Oystein Baadsvik, Arnold Jacobs, Chuck Daellenbach, Roger Bobo, Tommy Johnson, Gene Pokorny, Carol Jantsch, Nat McIntosh, Daniel Herskedal, Sam Pilafian, Patrick Sheridan.

There's a wide variety of colors and styles in their playing, and you can definitely get a taste for different styles of Tubing from them.

The "American Orchestral Tuba Sound" is pretty much defined by Jacobs and Pokorny.
Bobo and Johnson have the handle on the weightier film score sound (see the 1971 Zubin Mehta recording of Uranus).
McIntosh is a way out there jazz solist.
Baadsvik is a virtuosic solist with extreme technical abilities and a very european sound.
Jantsch and Olka are well-rounded orchestral players with sounds that lay somewhere in the middle of the road.
Herskedal is a contemporary (minimalist?) artist that gets some very emotional sounds out of the instrument and makes it very light and airy.
Daellenbach is the player for the Canadian Brass and Pilafian made a career of quintet playing with Empire Brass and Boston Brass
Sheridan has a very soft and playful solo sound.

Listen around to those players (and more that I'm sure others will add) and you'll get a pretty good sense of the emotional and technical range of the instrument and its colors.

You can also listen to most of the major excerpts and find sheet music over at http://www.brassexcerpts.com, or check out Gene Porkorny's album where he plays them with commentary here

Also check out Wilfred Brandstotter and Mnozil Brass. Theatrics, Humor and Exceptional playing! You can find a bunch of their stuff on Youtube.

I got a copy of Tuba Helper by David Zerkel.

It covers the basic advanced tuba repertoire most performance majors encounter.

As a non music/non performance major enthusiast, it exceeds my capabilities, but it is well executed and listenable.

John Fletcher, Floyd Cooley, Chester Schmitz, Hans Nickel, and Michael Lind. All made recordings 1-5 decades ago that are still unmatched.

Rick "not always the best recording technology, but what sounds!" Denney

Recordings are great, but (when conditions allow) try to hear lots of solid players live.

I had a discussion like this with Harvey Phillips years ago, we got more into it - what brass players should we all know. All the respective brass societies issue their highest awards annually. Problem is that no one has a list of all of them with biographies, especially in one place. Harvey told me that this was a good job for me, that's how it started! I put it on the educational part of my website - https://www.windsongpress.com/brass-legends/" target="_blank . Take a look!

uh... Sean Chisham?

This is an impossible list -- because outside of the household names, we all gravitate to the people with whom we are most familiar. Or, tuba players that, if I mention them, I'd think we all know who they are.

So, along those lines (especially the latter... I feel like many of you will know who they are):
David Fedderly
Toby Hanks
Steve Dumaine
Kevin Ladd
Ed Goldstein

There are also a TON of military band tuba players (past and present) who are outrageously talented tuba players. It's a separate embarrassment that I can't recall more names for this list, but here are two I can recall at the moment:
Tom Holtz
Scott Cameron

I would ad;
Jon Sass
Bob Stewart
Bob Tucci

I would add:
Jens Björn-Larsen
Stéphane Labeyrie
Roland Szentpáli
Henrique dos Santos Costa

And Sasha Johnson!

bloke wrote:...then, there are some players who are under-the-radar astonishingly good, and others who are boisterously so-so.

Tuba-playing and glad-handing are not synonyms.

bort wrote: household names

Now, that's a phrase I never thought would ever be paired with "tuba"......

bloke wrote: Tuba-playing and glad-handing are not synonyms.

I don't think that's what they're teaching in kolidj currently.

Howard Johnson

[

Thanks, Tofu, for your reference to Singleton Palmer. I had never heard of the guy. Here's a YouTube sound-only clip of Palmer's work.

https://youtu.be/V-iu7IBD5kk?t=377" target="_blank

Ace

I concur with all the names listed on here. I’d like to add Stefan Ambrosius. His playing in the German Brass albums are fantastic.