Most Influential Tubists

[tclements]

Every generation, the level of tuba playing goes up. My OWN recollection is that the 'tree' goes like this:

August Helleberg
Fred Geib
Bill Bell
Arnold Jacobs
Roger Bobo
Pat Sheridan

I know there are/were other great tubists, and the current generation of tuba players is INCREDIBLE*, but I believe these were the most influential.

*I DARE not list these as I KNOW I'll forget someone.

Respectfully submitted

[opus37]

For me it si Charles Deallenbach and Stan Freeze. I've met both and heard both play. Not only are they both great artists, they make the tuba fun for everyone around them.

[zoobie]

Bill Bell
Roger Bobo
Arnold Jacobs
Harvey Phillips
Don Butterfield
John Fletcher
Walter Hilgers

[CMRO225]

The first tuba recording I ever purchased was Patrick Sheridan's "Lollipops." It showed me that the tuba can do a lot more than most people think. He's an amazingly great technical player. Roger Bobo and Dan Perantoni were the next two. They really have that sound that I look for as a player. I envision myself sounding as virtuosic as they do.

On a personal level, my biggest influences are actually my high school band director, who was a euph player, and my current college professor, a trombone player.

[Mitch]

I have to agree with the at-large Big List, i.e., Bell, Phillips, Bobo, Jacobs, etc., and have to add a few more names.

I've been very fortunate to have studied with some truly fantastic teachers (and wish I'd done even more with the time I had with them - although I'd have to say they "taught me to fish," rather than "handing me a fish"). Among them were Richard Frazier, Jerry Young, Fritz Kaenzig, Arnold Jacobs, Mark Moore, Bob LeBlanc. If memory serves correctly, I also had single or limited lessons with Gene Pokorny, Ron Bishop, Dan Perantoni and others. Great teachers all. Without exception. If you live anywhere near any of them, are even half-way serious about developing your skills and haven't had a lesson with them, get on it.

But I have to put at the top of the list Fritz Kaenzig. His students are at the Met, the Philadelphia Orchestra, half of the Marine Band tuba and euphonium sections, the Navy Band, and many major universities. And there's a reason. As many great teachers as are "out there," if you want the Jacobs pedagogical approach, go study with Kaenzig. On the one hand, I wish I'd studied with Jacobs more. On the other hand, I didn't because, as a younk punk in college, I thought, "Why would I pay so much for lessons with Jacobs when that's what I'm getting from Kaenzig already? I mean, everything I'm getting from Jacobs is what Kaenzig says..." Having had the fortunate opportunity to study with a broad assortment of the best teachers, my vote says that Kaenzig is the keeper of the Jacobs flame. He's an outstanding orchestral tubist in his own right and has cultivated many of the "big names" of this generation and the next to come.

[davetubaking]

Derek Bourgeois - played 2nd tuba to John Fletcher in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

[pigman]

Walter Sear
John Fletcher
Rodger Bobo
Joe Novotney

[b.williams]

Toby Hanks.

When I was in college (1977), Toby Hanks performed Herbert L. Clarke's From The Shores of The Mighty Pacific with our concert band. At the time I was trying to play it on euphonium. He sounded as effortless on the tuba as Girard Swartz sounded on cornet!!

[Wyvern]

For me its John Jenkins of the Philharmonia and Owen Slade when he was in the London Philharmonic. Back in the 1990's when I worked in London I used to go at least weekly to orchestral concerts at the Royal Festival Hall and they most influenced my concept of the ideal orchestral tuba sound.