Chris LaBarbera Trumpet Interview
Welcome to the show notes for Episode #142 of The Other Side of the Bell – A Trumpet Podcast. This episode features trumpeter Chris LaBarbera. Listen to or download the episode below:
About Chris LaBarbera
Christopher LaBarbera began playing trumpet in middle school in 1974, and by the age of 14 was already sitting in on local jam sessions and gigs. By his early twenties he had become an in-demand freelancer, performing with artists such as Wayne Newton, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra Jr., and many others.
Chris studied with the legendary Donald S. “Doc” Reinhardt, whose “Pivot System” remains one of the most influential and detailed approaches to brass playing ever developed. Building on that legacy, Chris has taught the Reinhardt system for many years, helping countless students unlock their potential by tailoring embouchure, breathing, and playing mechanics to each individual.
Today, Chris is recognized not only for his wide-ranging performance career but also as a dedicated teacher and mentor, carrying forward Reinhardt’s principles while making them accessible and practical for modern players.
Chris LaBarbera episode links
- Vinnie Tanno performing with the Lon Norman Sextet in 1957 (mentioned by Chris)
- Fabulous trumpet solo by Chris, in “St. James Infirmary”
Upcoming Events:
- Virtuosity Musical Instruments Boston, October 16 & 18. We will have over 300+ trumpet mouthpieces, consultations, and on site valve alignments.
Book your alignment here! -
Greg Black Mouthpieces, November 7 & 8
-
North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference, November 9 & 10
Podcast Credits
- “A Room with a View“ – composed and performed by Howie Shear
- Audio Engineer – Ted Cragg
- Cover Photo Credit – Chris LaBarbera
- Podcast Host – John Snell
Transcript
Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. It may contain spelling and other errors. If you would like to assist us in editing or translating this transcript, please let us know at info@bobreeves.com.
[00:00:00]
JOHN SNELL: Hello and welcome to The Other Side of the Bell, a podcast dedicated to everything trumpet brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass. We’ll help you take your trumpet plane to the next level. I’m John Snell, trumpet specialist here at Bob Reeves Brass, and I’ll be your host for this episode. Joining me today is trumpeter Chris LeBarbera.
We’ll get to Chris’s interview here in a moment after a word from our sponsor and some trumpet news.
[00:01:00]
JOHN SNELL: It was really funny after, uh, I think it was the last episode, I gave a shout out to someone, I think it was Greg, uh, who was making his way through all of the episodes, all of the backlog of the other side [00:02:00] of the bell, and I got a, a flurry of emails saying, Hey, I started this. Going through a hundred episodes.
Uh, I think so far Scott, uh, over in, uh, Georgia has the record. He said he started in November of 2024 and, uh, is caught up. Uh, so 140 something episodes in nine months. So that’s, that’s a lot of trumpet talk. And what is that? Nine, 10 episodes a month? Maybe a little bit more. Uh, so thank you to everyone, who’s, written John in Hawaii.
And a lot of folks who are, uh, either on social media or shooting me emails or coming in person and, uh, thanking us for the podcast ’cause this is a team effort, uh, the folks behind the scenes. so thank you so much and, uh, man, I, I have the best audience, uh, talk about trumpet Geekdom, 140 some odd hours of trumpet talk, but great information and not just about trumpet.
As you know, we talk about life and, uh, other things as well. Couple things coming up, some travel. [00:03:00] Finally confirmed, I think I mentioned last episode. I will be going to virtuosity, musical instruments in Boston. Our good friends there. Caddy corner from Symphony Hall down the street from NEC Berkeley, Boston College, and many other.
MIT can’t forget about them. There’s some trumpet players at MIT as well. Uh, I will be there. The dates for that are October 16th, 17th and 18th. So that’s, uh, Thursday the 16th. Friday the 17th and Saturday the 18th. I think I’ll be doing half days on the 16th and 18th and a full day on Friday. So come in, hang out, uh, have an espresso or, uh, they usually have some cold brew as well.
One of the reasons I love going to virtuosity is they keep me well caffeinated. they always have a lot of great new and used horns on the shelf to try out. Oh, and by the way, we will have 300 plus trumpet mouthpieces. Bring your trombone and french horn buddies because we will have the reeves [00:04:00] brass arc trombone mouthpiece for trombone, small bore, large bore and bass trombone, and our Dylan Hart signature horn mouthpiece.
So great time. Uh, you can bring the whole brass quintet, sorry, UBA players don’t have anything for you guys yet. also we’ll have the vin mutes there. I’ll bring some with me so you can test out the famous dizzy. Cup and dizzy, bop mute, you know, the Harmon style mute that Dizzy played his, uh, whole career basically on, uh, we’ll have those there as well as the other fun, vin mutes and, uh, it’s always a great hang.
Get in a valve alignment. if you’re there, get your valves measured if you’re not sure if you want a valve alignment. Again, October 16th, 17th and 18th. Virtuosity music in Boston. There’ll be a link down if you do want a valve alignment. We will have a link in the description where you can book your slot.
They will go fast. Few weeks later, we will be going to North Carolina. Our good friends at Craig Black Mouthpieces in Mount Holly. Just outside of [00:05:00] Charlotte. the dates for that are November 7th and eighth. That’ll be a Friday and Saturday. Same thing. We’ll have trumpet, trombone and horn mouthpieces.
There will be olein mutes, and as I like to say, if you can’t find a mouthpiece between Bob Reeves Brass and the hundreds of mouthpieces we bring, and Greg Black, who has, they have hundreds of mouthpieces Oh. And can build anything there custom for you. If you can’t find it there, it probably doesn’t exist.
Always a great hang. always there’s some donuts and snacks around. Uh, so even if you don’t. Wanna buy anything, come and do the brass. Hang. all are welcome. Uh, we don’t have a signup sheet yet for the alignments. Uh, we have a few, actually. I think Scott is number one on the list. Scott, if you’re listening, don’t worry.
I got you down. but, uh, we will have that shortly, as we get closer to the event, after, Mount Holly. All of us, Greg Black and Bob Reeves Brass will be heading to Northern North Carolina to Winston-Salem for the North [00:06:00] Carolina Music Educators Association Conference 2025.
And the dates for that are the. Ninth and 10th. So that’s a, it’s a weird one. It’s Sunday and Monday. ’cause it’s that Veteran’s Day weekend. Uh, so I will be at the Greg Black booth. They are very kind hosts. so they get an extra table for us. So we squeeze in on the end of their booth. I will be doing a few alignments there.
Uh, if you can’t make it to Mount Holly. We’ll also have the mouthpieces and the vin mute. So, if, uh, you’re in and around Winston-Salem, I will see you at the N-C-M-E-A annual conference November 9th through 10th. And just booked, I don’t have the dates confirmed yet, but we will be going to Japan over the, uh, in here, in the US that Thanksgiving week, so around November 20th, 21st.
I know I have a lot of listeners in Japan, so, uh. Keep your eyes and ears out on our social media, because I will be confirming our [00:07:00] schedule. You our home base is Tokyo at Joy Brass. but, uh, a lot of times they’ll have us go up to, uh, ate Prefecture or uh, Osaka.
Fukuoka Nagoya, we’ve, we’ve been all over the place in Japan, so I don’t know what our plans are yet. Definitely Tokyo. Uh, we might visit, uh, some other cities as well. And same thing, the Bob Reeves roadshow Valve alignments, mouthpieces, mutes. Fun conversation. Lots of great food. so the dates of that will be on and around, uh, that third week of November.
So November 20th, 21st, up till about probably the 24th or 25th. So keep an eye on our social media. Of course, as soon as I have the dates confirmed, I will report back here as well. ’cause I know some of you aren’t on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. other than being up to our, uh, ears and, uh, mouthpieces, everything’s great here at the shop.
And, uh. Continue to write in. I always appreciate hearing from y’all and, uh, we got a great interview today with Chris Lebar. [00:08:00] Lots of great trumpet talk, uh, fascinating player. you know, we don’t have a lot of lifelong Florida freelancers and teachers and he’s, uh, you know, made a great living, in not a market that, uh, we normally hear of New York, Chicago, London, la, things like that.
And. I think most importantly is he was a, uh, studied with Doc Reinhardt and, uh, I believe this was our first, Reinhardt student and, uh, teacher on the podcast. So, great conversation about the pivot system, which is actually a not pivot system. So I’ll leave you with that. And now here’s my interview with Chris Lebar.
JOHN SNELL: Well, I’m so honored to have my guest today, Chris Lebar. He began playing trumpet in middle school back in 1974, and by age 14 was already sitting in on local jam sessions and gigs. By his early twenties, he had become an in-demand freelancer, performing with artists such as Wayne Newton, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Jr, and many others.
Chris studied with the [00:09:00] legendary doc Reinhardt, whose pivot system remains one of the most influential and detailed approaches to brass plane ever developed. Building on that legacy, Chris has taught the Reinhardt system for many years helping countless students unlock their potential by tailoring Asure breathing and playing mechanics to each individual.
Today, Chris is recognized not only for his wide ranging performance career, but also as a dedicated teacher and mentor carrying forward Reinhardt’s principles while making them accessible and practical for modern players. And now here’s my interview with Chris Lebar.
JOHN SNELL: Well, it’s such an honor to have joining me on the other side of the bell, Chris Lebar. Chris, how’s it going?
CHRIS LABARBERA: How you doing?
JOHN SNELL: I’m doing great. I’m glad to have you on here and a huge little shout out to Pete Olstead for connecting us. ’cause I’ve been wanting to have you on for a long time and our p paths haven’t crossed, so.
CHRIS LABARBERA: He’s a very dear friend. Great guy. Wonderful person. Great player.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Very [00:10:00] thankful to know Pete and he was a previous guest on here. So, for your folks listening, go back and listen to Pete’s episode. but let’s talk about you, Chris,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Okay.
JOHN SNELL: start right from the beginning. Let’s, how did you find the trumpet?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Probably like almost 80, 90% of everybody else. Band, school, band program. 1974. I was what, 11 years old? 10 or 11. I think the sixth grade, you know, beginning band and, uh. I just did it to get outta gym because in Florida, you know, it’s really hot in the summer and I just didn’t wanna be outside of the summer doing the calisthenics, you know?
so I said to my mother, he signed me up for band, so she signed me up for band and the guy came in with all the instruments and he, so I said, you know what? I wanna play the pickle. It fits in my pocket. I don’t have to carry anything. Abby. I was just looking to get outta gym. I didn’t care anything about, you know, I was a guitar player.
I really loved guitar. That was my first instrument. Should have stuck with it. I should have stuck with it. so the guy showed us everything. I couldn’t get the pickle, so I got a [00:11:00] flute, took it home, couldn’t get a sound out of it. I was there getting dizzy, blowing so hard. The kid next door had a trumpet.
He brought it over and I was able to make a noise on it. My mother said, do you want one of those? I said, okay, get me one of those. And that was it right there.
JOHN SNELL: So it fell into your lap? I
CHRIS LABARBERA: I.
JOHN SNELL: I think you might be the first person who wanted to start on piccolo flute.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh, I did, only because I said, well, it could fit in my locker. I don’t have to bring it home. I don’t have to carry it around. I was just looking to get outta gym. I just didn’t wanna be outside in the summer. That’s all. It’s very hot here. And you
JOHN SNELL: And now look, here we are after the,
That
CHRIS LABARBERA: I know.
JOHN SNELL: so, so you started playing the trumpet. Did you, um, I mean, did you have any mu, you said you played guitar. Did you have anyone else musical in your family or was, were you kind of the
CHRIS LABARBERA: my, my, my mother’s side of the family there were a few musicians. I had an uncle who was a drummer. My uncle Dominic was a drummer. My uncle Lefty was a tap dancer. you know, there were some musicians in there, you know, but nobody, nobody, you know, like of any of note or importance or anything. Just, you know, [00:12:00] I guess they just kind of fooled around.
Maybe played some club dates or something. What you guys call casuals up in the New York area, you know?
JOHN SNELL: So you were of paving your own path then, uh, I mean, did you instantly, was there like a instant attraction with the trumpet or was it
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well, here’s what happened. I took it home and I started fooling around on it, and I got pretty good on it, you know, I mean, I wasn’t really interested in it at first, but I got pretty good on it. And I was only playing it. maybe a couple of months, and the band director was teaching us the B flat scale, you know, two flats.
and he said, uh, to the saxophone players, I want you to learn this for two octaves. So I went home and I tried playing it for up, up and down for two octaves, and I was able to get all the way up to the B flat, not the, you know, the high B flat under me. And the band director was like, really impressed.
He made me do it for the whole class and, you know, and then I was like, Hey, you know, hey man, uh, you know, I’m a big deal in this thing now. And I started to like it a little more, you know? [00:13:00] Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: did you say, you mentioned, did you have a private instructor or was it just purely figuring things out on your own?
CHRIS LABARBERA: There was a guy my mother asked me if I wanted to take private lessons. They were only five bucks for a half hour in those days. Imagine that, huh? And
Yeah, five bucks for a half hour. And I, I took lessons with a guy his name was, uh, I think his name was Ted Welding. He was a very good trumble player.
He became an anesthesiologist or something. I heard, I lost touch with him many years ago, but you’re going back 50 years, you know? And I took lessons with him and I got, I got better. And then I really started taking interest in it. By the time I was 13, I was really into it, you know, all the way up to all the way up to my eyeballs.
I mean, I was into it. I was sold, you know what I mean? I wanted to be a trumpet player by 13, you know? And by 14 years I was really swinging at 14. I was really into it.
JOHN SNELL: Like practicing every day. Just what, who were you listening to? What, what were your inspirations?
CHRIS LABARBERA: I was a Dizzy Gillespie fanatic when I was 14. I mean, I was, I had [00:14:00] all the records, know, all the old things he did with Charlie Parker and all the early bebo stuff. I had all his big band stuff. That great big band he had in 1949. and then, uh, somebody gave me a major Ferguson record, I think it was MF one three, which I never thought that was his best record anyway, and I listened to it and I didn’t like it. I didn’t really like it.
It sounded like Izzy Gillespie better. then somebody gave me a copy of MF one two, and that’s a really good record. That’s the one with Give It One and country Road. And, you know, I mean, that’s a really, that’s one of his best. And, uh, then I got the, uh, MF Foreign record with MacArthur Park.
Then I was into Maynard and still loving Dizzy, but you know, into Maynard. Then I, I started listening to Royal Eldridge because Dizzy said that was his influence. And I got heavily into Roy Eldridge. Yeah, I was into all those old players when I was young. I was only 14, 15 years old. Really crazy transcribing those souls and stuff.
Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Really? Was that all on your own? I mean, you, you just listened to him Or was, did your band director or somebody tell you to start transcribing?
CHRIS LABARBERA: I wasn’t writing ’em down. I [00:15:00] just was like, I like that solo. I wanna learn that. And I just listened to it over and over. Another thing, I had a record this is, the young guys aren’t gonna get this one, but I had a turntable with a 16 and a half speed on it with pitch control. Just happened to have one.
It was an old duel and you could slow ’em down half speed. So you could take a dizzy spy saw that was like blindingly fast and you could slow it down. And it sounds like somebody playing valve trombone at half tempo, you know? So you could get
JOHN SNELL: were doing that Teenager
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: and just on your own accord, not some, someone saying
CHRIS LABARBERA: no.
JOHN SNELL: sit down and transcribe these. It’ll be good for you.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Nope. Not at all. Nope. Yeah. I wasn’t a good enough reader or anything to write those down at that age, but I was picking them up. I was, you know, the really hard ones I, I had trouble with, but I could get some of the easier ones, you know?
some of the slower ones,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. So, so you’re all into the trumpet. 13, 14 years old have a teacher going. I mean, was there a point where you said, wow, I mean, I wanna do this for the rest of my life. I
Of this.
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah, absolutely. At 14. That’s, I knew at that, about, at that age, [00:16:00] that’s what I wanted to do.
JOHN SNELL: No, no question. No question. And it’s sounds like by your influences, you were looking for, you were looking into jazz commercial kind of playing.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. I wasn’t really interested in classical music or legit playing or anything like that. And then I, uh, then I met Vinny Tano, and Vinny was a great influence on me. he was a fantastic trumpet player. I don’t know if you, if you ever heard of that, heard that name.
JOHN SNELL: No, I don’t know the name.
CHRIS LABARBERA: He was on the Kenton band.
He was on all the bands. He was on, on Kenton Band. He was on Lionel Hamptons band. He was, I think it was with Les Brown. He was on a lot of bands and uh, he was a fantastic jazz trumpet player. Great lead trumpet player. Had great chops. Great chops, great high chops. He’d play all over the horn. He used to plunger, you know, and the lessons.
He would say, Hey, let me do Clark Terry for you. Listen, this is Clark now. Now listen, this is dizzy. I mean, he could do Louie. I mean, he was just, just an incredible trumpet player. I never heard anybody like that till this day. I’ve never heard anybody like Vinny. Vinny was unique and unbelievable. It’s amazing.
He’s not more [00:17:00] well-known.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah I’ve, I’m sure I’ve seen ’em on the back of Kenton albums
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah
JOHN SNELL: yeah. Not for, so,
CHRIS LABARBERA: he’s on the Cuban Fire album. He’s got all the Souls Cuban Fire album. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, I, now I have to go pay more attention, so how did,
CHRIS LABARBERA: There, there’s a little, there’s a little thing on YouTube or something. He recorded. He was very young. It’s with the Lan, Norman Sextet. It’s on YouTube. The whole record. Somebody put it up so you can hear that too. He sounds good on there, but when I heard him, he was in his like early forties maybe, and he was, I mean, he was killing it.
He was just, he was amazing. It was unbelievable.
JOHN SNELL: Vinny Tano. So how did you get, how’d you get connected with Vinny?
CHRIS LABARBERA: The guy that, his name was all over town. I mean, you know, he was like the top guy in town. He did all the work, all the shows, you know, everything, all the record dates. He’s on all the kc, early KC and the Sunshine Band records. he’s on some of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack records.
Mike Lewis produced those. And he used, he used Vinny a lot. And Vinny was over down at, there’s a, there was a famous studio down here [00:18:00] called Criteria. I mean, everybody recorded there, you know, everybody, you name it, they recorded there. you know, you walk in there to do a record. They, there’s gold records all over the wall for, you know, Diana Ross, Kenny Rogers, you, I mean, country people, rock people, disco records.
now it’s called the Hit Factory. I think last time I was in there was the hit factory, but it was criteria for years. A guy named Mac Berman started the early 1950 Miami in North Miami. It’s still there, it’s just a different name. And, uh, his name was all over town. All over town. And I had kept hearing Vinny Town, you gotta hear Vinny, you gotta meet Vinny.
So I, I forget how I met him, but my mom was driving me over there for lessons, and we were Italian. He was Italian. I would bring him pepperoni, I would bring him pieces of GAVA gold. My grandfather would come down from the Bronx and he would bring a, you know, a Parmesan ano cheese and look a Italian cheese.
I’d bring him a hunk of cheese and he’d gimme a lesson.
JOHN SNELL: Oh, wow. Now you’re making me hungry. What a good time. [00:19:00] What a good time.
CHRIS LABARBERA: it’s interesting. It’s all true. I’ve never said this before in a podcast. Nobody ever asks, but that’s, yeah. I used to bring him, I used to bring him food. I swear I used to bring him pepperoni and Gaza, all kinds of stuff. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: man. I mean, I stopped teaching several years ago, but I might start again if I have a student bringing me some of that, so, well, so what did Vinny Vinny teach you? Like what was he working with you on? Jazz or pedagogy, or both?
CHRIS LABARBERA: You know, the funny thing is he didn’t show me anything. He just used to play a lot for me. I kind of just. Learn by example. You know, He taught me a lot about, he was really into mouthpieces. He must had a hundred, 150 mouthpieces, and he ruined every one of them with, he said to me, I’m gonna show you how to fix your own mouthpiece with the back of a boy scout knife used to take the back of the blade and, you know, little rolls of brass would come off.
He’d go through the silver and he, you know, he’d turn it and say, say I come home after the gig and I work on the mouthpiece while I’m watching tv. You know, this one’s too sharp. I take the bite out and every mouthpiece he gave me was torn up, you know, so I did that a [00:20:00] few times and I stopped.
I just said, there’s no way to do this. You know,
JOHN SNELL: that’s hysterical, man. I’d love to see one of those. A Vinny Tano original.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Some of them came out.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah, he was into all, he liked those early New York box. I remember I found an old New York 12 C once with the big letters, you know, and I gave it to him. Oh, you would’ve thought I was giving him a winning lotto ticket. Oh, I love this. Thanks. I’ll never forget this. Yeah,
JOHN SNELL: How cool. so he’s, he played, you learned from him more from listening to a sound, watching him, that sort of thing.
and this was still while you were in high school, right? Like you, this
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah. Well, I was, I didn’t, I didn’t finish high school. I left in the 10th grade and took a GED
JOHN SNELL: Wow.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I only went two years to high school. I took a GED
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: but I kept, you know, I, I saw him all the time. And then he moved to Vegas. They brought him out to Vegas in the eighties and he lived in Vegas the rest of his life and lived out in Vegas.
And we talked on the phone a lot, but that’s where the Reinhardt connection comes. ’cause he was from Philadelphia
JOHN SNELL: Okay.
CHRIS LABARBERA: and he studied with Reinhardt in 1958, I think he [00:21:00] said. And, to cut to like, you know, a few years later I lived, uh, on a street in Hollywood where there were a lot of, uh, it was zoned duplex.
There were a lot of duplexes. And, uh, we had one we rented out several units and we lived, we lived in, in one of the, you know, you can’t be an absentee landlord in Florida. You just can’t, they’ll tear up your property, you’ve gotta watch it all. So who moves right next door? This trombone player, many people might not know him, but he was a greatly trombone player in the seventies and early eighties.
Roger Homefield, he was on the KE band for, for years. He was on Buddy, he did a couple of tours with Buddy in the early eighties. played that west side, story solo, you know, I mean, he was what a great trombone player. And he was a, he was a R Art guy. And he went to my parents and he said there’s this guy in Philadelphia.
He’s getting old. And, um. Chris should see him before he, uh, passes away. And I had a lot of family up in the northeast, New York, Connecticut, all up in that area. And I would, uh, I would go up there and stay with my, my grandmother or somebody, my cousins, whoever. And then [00:22:00] I’d take the train to Philadelphia, take lessons with Rein.
That’s where the Reinhart connection goes.
And just to make the story even better, when Roger left, he sublet the place to Dennis. No day. You know, Dennis No day. Right.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. Dennis,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Dennis
JOHN SNELL: a,
CHRIS LABARBERA: was my next, Dennis was my next story neighbor for five or six years. I could look out my window and holler to him, Hey, Dennis.
You know? Yeah. He was, I mean, it was
JOHN SNELL: what a
CHRIS LABARBERA: literal
JOHN SNELL: world.
CHRIS LABARBERA: next door to me. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: A little like a trumpet hotspot in the
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh yeah. I mean, I met Bob when Bob Colson was playing on the Buddy Rich Band, he stayed in that apartment. He stayed in that apartment with Roger, met Bob Colson. I met Paul Moen.
JOHN SNELL: Oh,
CHRIS LABARBERA: I met Paul Moen, the tenor player. I met so many guys in that apartment through Roger and through Dennis.
Yeah, I was just a kid. I was only 15 years old. I met all these guys. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: that’s incredible. so take us into, what do you remember your, um, your first lesson with Reinhardt?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. It was uh, in March of 1979, I was just getting ready to turn 16 and, [00:23:00] uh, my mother sent a friend with me. to go up there I stayed at my grandmother’s and we, and we took the train into Philly and I had that first lesson he used to call it the orientation and analysis lesson, and he sort of took a liking to me because he kept me there all day.
I was there all day. I think it was the Dizzy Gillespie thing. ’cause he said to me, play something for me. And the first thing I did was go, you know, dizzy Does. And he, he said, where’d you learn that? Who taught you that? You know, I said, I took it off a record. You know, we got off pretty good.
Him and I,
JOHN SNELL: that shows a lot. Did you bring him Italian food as well?
CHRIS LABARBERA: You know, I wanted to bring him some MoneyGuard from my grandmother, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it from, Connecticut to Philadelphia without getting it all over my shirt. Spilling it. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. That’s gotta be fresh or
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah, absolutely. My, my grandmother was a gold truck.
JOHN SNELL: so what did you call that? The first lesson where he says like an orientation, analysis and orientation. So he had you play and then what would he do?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh, he would he would tell you what [00:24:00] type you were. I was a three B. And he would watch you playing. He would tell you point out the little habits that you had that would be holding you back. You know, that might be, say that things that you were doing that, were keeping you from getting the most out of your playing.
little things, small things. he was accused of changing Asure and things like that. He never changed anybody’s asure. He was adamant about that. He would never change anybody. But he had that reputation and it was a shame that he did because he never did. He would just point out little things.
And that’s what I do in the lessons. I watch a guy play and, I’ll say, you, you know, try this, work on this little small little things, you know? And, um, they show great improvement when they fix these little things,
JOHN SNELL: and I just yeah, ’cause I’m trying to remember, I mean, I’ve certainly had, guests before that brought up Reinhardt and the Reinhardt system. I may be mistaken, but I think you’re the first who studied with him.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh yeah. For eight years.
JOHN SNELL: so can you kinda give us a, like a, just a overview of his, like the pivot
CHRIS LABARBERA: Okay. Alright. Well
JOHN SNELL: apertures.
CHRIS LABARBERA: of [00:25:00] all, he felt that, that word pivot wasn’t a good word. He said I should have never had that associated with my name and the word system. I should have never had those words associated with my name. I don’t know what he wanted. He told me that once, you know?
JOHN SNELL: I’m sorry for, I’m sorry, doc, for saying the pivot
CHRIS LABARBERA: Ah yeah, go. Yeah, no, it’s okay. No.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: there were basically, you gotta remember in those days there were three teachers. There was Carmine, Caruso, Royce, Stevens, and Reinhart. And, uh, I took a couple lessons with Carmine. I took the train into New York, took a couple lessons with Carmine and I didn’t take a lesson with Roy Stevens, but I, I used to go in there and watch him teach, you know, but Reinhard I was, you know, I was with for eight years.
Alright, well he would, he would type you and then he would, he would watch you play. I was doing a really bad thing. I was taking the breath, holding it, placing the mouthpiece and playing. And he said, you know, that’s wrong. You gotta stop that. You gotta learn how to take a mouth corner.
Inhalation, like he was real stickler about correct mouth corner inhalation. Where you, you know, the lips must be just touching in the [00:26:00] center, gently touching. So you blow them open and you wanted to make sure you used enough mouthpiece pressure that you got a good seal all the way around. He called it the hermetic seal, he wanted you to take the breath through the mouth corners and you wanted you to, make sure you didn’t do a big stretch so you didn’t pull the thing out from under the rim, he was real stickler about that. And that’s, mostly what he worked on. And, uh, he wanted to make sure you played the low register correctly. He had certain ideas about that, you know, he didn’t like you to a lot of guys, I mean, they do this, a lot of guys, I mean, I know, Doc does in the severance, tilt the head down, you drop the horn to play a little g you know, Maynard used to do that, but he, he didn’t like that.
He wanted you to, keep the angle pretty close all the way up and down. He was basically about. The less movement you have, the better and more efficient you’re gonna play. Like he just wanted to eliminate all the unnecessary movements and mannerisms that you didn’t need to play the trumpet. that’s basically what it was.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, so kind of anti pivot or minimize the pivot
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well,
JOHN SNELL: kind[00:27:00]
CHRIS LABARBERA: he used to say, he used to say, see, that’s the thing. That’s why he didn’t like to pivot. ’cause
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: he didn’t want people to think that the horn was being pivoted up and down, which that’s what everybody thought, you know? But it wasn’t like that. It was he wanted you to he said when the pivot was done correctly, it was, you could barely see it.
You could barely notice it when it was done. Right. but for some reason he got this reputation of, you know, lower register hire, waving. He used to say, waving the horn in the you.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. And And I know this information is in his books and on, certainly on the internet. Can you just do a brief kind of synopsis of the different abre types and how you can tell.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well, he had, see that’s another thing. He had a whole bunch, he had I think nine different ones, but there’s really only three basic ones. There’s a three B, a three A, and a four, which is an upstream, that’s it as far as I’m concerned, as far as most guys who teach it and know about it are concerned. The three A, a very high placement, Harry James was a three A or through Sandoval was a three A.
The three B was the most common [00:28:00] type back in those days. I don’t know if it is anymore. Maybe it’s three A now. I’m not sure. But, um, I see a lot of both. The three B is right around half and half. Brian McDonald’s A three B Maynard was A three B according to Ryan. Are you three B? I’m a three B.
And then you have the type four upstream, which is the Bud Bri boy type, which is, those are the guys that, rule the upper register. Most of them, you know, Derek Watkins was a four. Upstream Bud. Bri boy was a type four. John Fattys was a type four cat. Anderson was a type four, you know,
JOHN SNELL: And is that just based on your the amsu type based on your, just your natural build?
CHRIS LABARBERA: it’s based on what lip dos in the cup. If there’s more upper lip dominating in the cup, you’re a downstream type. There’s more lower lip dominating in the cup. You’re an upstream type. See, most people think it’s the angle that determines the direction of the airstream. It’s the mouthpiece placement.
It’s which lip dominates under the rim if the lower lip is dominating. The air’s got no place to go but up. If the upper lip is dominating. The air’s got [00:29:00] nowhere to go but down. You can see this over and over and over again on a clear plastic mouth. I’ve seen it, many, many, many, many dozens of times.
On atop plastic, melty, you see the upper lip dominates, the air goes down, the lower lip dominates, the air goes up. Like I said, the, the upstream types of the more rarer types. You don’t see too many. might see, one out of a dozen, even if that,
JOHN SNELL: And is that something that you can learn in o Omnisure type or is it something that we’re just
CHRIS LABARBERA: it’s something basically born with, it has to do with the length of your teeth, has to do with the length of thickness of your lips, basically.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. And then so then the benefit of Reinhardt’s teaching is then identifying that and then kind of catering to what
CHRIS LABARBERA: Right? Exactly.
JOHN SNELL: type
CHRIS LABARBERA: That’s the word. Catering. Yes. You go with what nature gave you and you try to improve upon it.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. So in, your case, you said you were a three B. So what were the kind of things that he gave you as a I’m now it’s funny, we’ll kind of go back [00:30:00] in time, back when you were a teenager,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: was it exercises? Was it just hints that you were to think about?
CHRIS LABARBERA: He gave you a, he would, here’s what he would do. Pretty interesting. He’d go in there, he’d watch you play, he’d tell you what type you were, and then, he’d talk to you for about an hour and a half. Then he would send you in the back room, and he would, he was a ty, he was a really good typist.
I don’t know where he learned how to type, but he was, he could he did the typewriter going, and he, he typed you up a couple of pages of personalized things that he wanted you to work on. and then he gave you a set of exercises. The first lesson he gave you. 10 test drills.
Kind of hard to say, 10 test drills, but there were 10 drills. there was the pivot stabilizer, there was the track routine, you know, and a bunch of other things that he would give you. And he would send you home and he’d come back maybe, you know, a month or two later, it was up to you.
But he’d say, give it at least, a few weeks. and you’d come back a few weeks later, a month later, And then you would’ve your, what do you call, the [00:31:00] two hour break in lesson, and he would give you some other stuff. He’d change the routines out. You don’t need those anymore.
Now I’ve got advanced to these routine, taking these routine, and he was always watching you play and looking to see if you had anything going on that you shouldn’t be doing. You’d go to him meeting, you know, you’d get a lesson and he’d watch you play. He’d say, oh, you know, you didn’t do that last time you were here.
Don’t let that become a habit. Watch that,
JOHN SNELL: Interesting. So it was purely about just the fundamentals of your omnisure and, I mean, would he talk to you about like sound production range articulation, things like that as
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh yeah, no. Yeah he loved the brand book. You know, he had us all play outta that brand book all the time. He had favorites in there that he had, he, he wanted you to practice and, uh, he wanted you to take that, when you got advanced, he wanted you to take that ar characteristics today.
I forget which one it is. It’s all fast. Triplets da. And he wants, you, want you to play the whole page up on Octa, you know? Yeah. I mean, he, [00:32:00] oh, he had you, he had you play out of flute books. He had me, had me buy this, uh, lonas and Progressive flute studies by John Val, and he had us play some toos out of the flip books, this was in the early eighties, late seventies. There was still a lot of big bands on the road. There was still a lot of high note trumpet players. I mean, you really, I don’t know where you’d play high notes today except in the studio or something. You know, I work in, used to work in small nightclubs and you couldn’t do that in there.
And uh, you don’t know of any big bands around in town that are working steady. But in those days there was a lot going on,
JOHN SNELL: yeah, you needed that power. You needed that
So.
CHRIS LABARBERA: absolutely.
JOHN SNELL: just kind of as a benchmark, so you, did you have a good range when you were going to him,
CHRIS LABARBERA: when I went to see him, as a kid, I could play pretty good high notes. I had a pretty good high a when I was, when I went to see him, but I was doing so many things incorrectly. I. Real tremendous limitations on my playing. I, I didn’t have a good staccato, a good rapid staccato.
It was really pretty, pretty bad. And, uh, I couldn’t get a lot of volume up there. I mean, they were [00:33:00] okay, but I couldn’t really push the volume. And he, did some things to me, changed me a little bit, little things that, bad habits I had. He helped me fix them. I mean, I did the work.
He helped me fix them. I spent, you know, a lot of time working on those when I was young. I remember by the time I was 15 years old, I’d only been staying with ’em maybe a year and a half. I was starting to play some really good double ics at that age. Were really good. Yeah. And I was very dear friends with bill Ratzenberger from Jet.
And, uh, Bill was a wonderful guy. Still made me some nice mouthpieces that helped. You gotta remember in those days, Bob Reeves was a hard guy to find. And this is, you know, I mean, he was all the way out in la you wanted something, you had to order it, you had to wait. It was a long wait time for the stuff.
So, all that was really around in those days was Silky, Jone, Elli and Bach. That was it. There was nothing else.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Unless you happen to be going through Hollywood and Hollywood,
CHRIS LABARBERA: I remember I,
JOHN SNELL: pick up the mouthpiece yourself.
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah, I remember the [00:34:00] first time I saw Bob Re’s mouth, he said, I gotta get one of these. Where did you get it? You know, I was, fascinated with it, and the guy said, well, I waited three months for this, and they were,
JOHN SNELL: that was short. I’ve heard six months I’ve heard
I never did get that malfeasance.
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah, there was a, it was a long wait time. I’m talking like 19 81, 82, you, those years,
JOHN SNELL: It
CHRIS LABARBERA: you know.
JOHN SNELL: the good old days.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah, and it wasn’t like you could give him a charge card number. You had to send him a check, wait for the check to clear or send him a money order, wait for him to get it all the way out in la and then you had to, you know, then you had to wait, then you had to wait for your mouthpiece,
JOHN SNELL: Yep. People don’t know how easy we have it these days.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh, they have no idea. They have no idea. But I was right near, it was right near Bridgeport, Connecticut. I could just take the train over there and see Bill Ratzenberger, and Bill would do anything I needed, he was the closest.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. Thanks to Amazon. Now someone will place an order online on at Sun, you know, on Sunday afternoon, and then we’ll get an email on Monday. Why hasn’t it shipped yet?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Wow.
JOHN SNELL: it’s
CHRIS LABARBERA: Geez.[00:35:00]
JOHN SNELL: you know, we’re thanks to Amazon. Everyone just
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: things instantly now. And you know, the eighties, nineties yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: And you also got.
JOHN SNELL: off a check and Yeah,
CHRIS LABARBERA: You also gotta remember, he didn’t mass produce his stock models in those days. They were made one at a time. Know, if he wanted a 41 s, he made you a 41 s, you know, he didn’t have one at all. I’ll take one off the shelf. It’ll go out today.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. And,
CHRIS LABARBERA: There,
JOHN SNELL: and we’re still that way. We just, our, our turnaround is faster ’cause it’s not Bob
CHRIS LABARBERA: I mean,
JOHN SNELL: one at a
CHRIS LABARBERA: there were no C NNC lays. They used form tools in those days. You know, that’s,
JOHN SNELL: do, we haven’t changed
CHRIS LABARBERA: oh you still using form tools? Wow. I didn’t know that.
JOHN SNELL: yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh, that’s great. I’m glad, you know, I’m glad to hear that. That makes my heart, that warms my heart to hear that somebody still using
JOHN SNELL: the
CHRIS LABARBERA: form tools. That’s great.
JOHN SNELL: form tools backboards. The only thing that’s done on C NNC is the blank, the threading on the outside blank.
The shape.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Why don’t you explain to the young trumpet players out there what a Ford tool is? Go ahead. You’re the machine.
JOHN SNELL: we do have a video on our YouTube channel that shows [00:36:00] like, kind of how we make stuff. So, but I appreciate the plug. Keep us around another 60 years. Um, So you’re studying with Doc, Reinhardt, your, range is improving, your tone, your power, your, I mean, and I, I always mention upper register ’cause that seems to be the anomaly, but I’m assuming your lower register, the rest of your registers have filled out and become, have more control. so what happened next? Did you start freelancing? Did you get into the job market? Did you start playing.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I was a nervy little kid. at 14 years old, I was riding my bike to the American Legion on Sundays and sitting in with the accordion player and the drummer. I knew tunes from those, those old bebo, all those records. I knew I, when I was 14, I knew how to playto and can’t get started ’cause of Dizzy’s recording of it, bunny ER’s recording of it.
I had the, I had the original 78 of Bunny’s can’t get started. I had to have it, you know, even though I had the lp, I had to have that 78. So I went to an old record shop and I bought it. It cost me 20 bucks back in the seventies to buy that record. And it was a lot of money. so I knew a [00:37:00] few tunes and I’d go sit in, I started sitting in, at, at a very young age, 14, 15, I started going to jam sessions.
Back in the day this area was, was alive with a lot of nightclubs. You’re talking to Miami Beach? I lived, right near the Miami line. Hollywood is only a couple of miles from the. Miami near line, the Dade County line, and nightclubs everywhere. In those days, they were all over the place.
And eventually I found my way to this place right near my house. I, I mean, I could actually ride a bike there, but I, I was started, I started to drive at this time, and I found my way to this place called Hemingways, real famous nightclub, in the Hollywood area. They had everybody work there.
DI saw Dizzy Gillespie there. Mel Tome was there, Lionel Hampton was there. Buddy Rich was in this place. And I started working in there with a piano player there. Ernie Goldsmith, a wonderful, wonderful piano player, played a lot like Errol Garner, really great player. There’s some YouTubes of him. Some people would put some up.
He passed away years ago. He was a very close friend, and he was a [00:38:00] really good player. And I learned a lot from playing with I got to be a better jazz player, you know, better soulist. I started learning more tunes. and that’s how I got into the business.
I started out as a nightclub musician. Yeah,
JOHN SNELL: was there a point when all of a sudden you’re just like, Hey I’m here. I’m playing like
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. I,
JOHN SNELL: did you have any, like other jobs or anything to kind of make that transition you
CHRIS LABARBERA: no. I’ve never, never had a day job, ever. I was doing enough with the playing. There were enough nightclubs around to keep me busy all the time.
Yeah, all the time. I was always working. I played in a lot of different nightclubs. There was a place called Top of the Home.
there was another place called the Grand Saloon. there were nightclubs all over the place. You can you can, when they sing, you could swing a dead cat, you a nightclub. I mean, there were everywhere back in, this was still a big tourist area. And, uh, there was no internet.
Cable TV was very new. so people still went to the movies and they still went out to nightclubs in those days.
JOHN SNELL: and then were you starting to get into this, there’s a studio scene down there as well.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well,
JOHN SNELL: into recording?
CHRIS LABARBERA: that came [00:39:00] much later. Much later.
JOHN SNELL: Really?
CHRIS LABARBERA: I
JOHN SNELL: I mean, how long were you doing the casuals and the, like, the nightclub
CHRIS LABARBERA: oh for a long time. For many years. Never really became a proficient site reader. And that was the reason I never played shows. I never, uh, did any record dates. Then I got to be friendly with a gentleman by the name of Kenny Faulk. Kenny Faulk was on the Buddy Rich Band. think he took Chuck Finley’s place on the band.
Chuck Finley left. Kenny came on, or maybe when Kenny left, Chuck came on, I can’t remember, but he’s on, uh, a bunch of Buddy Rich records. He’s still around. Kenny, great trumpet player, wonderful trumpet player. He was a good friend of Vinny’s, penny Tanos. He did a lot of the recording sessions down here. he’s on all the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, that’s Kenny Faki here.
On, on most of that stuff. He’s on a lot of the KC and the Sunshine Band, the famous records. Him and Vinny did them together. and Kenny asked me to play in a rehearsal band, I turned him down three or four times and he finally called me. He said, why don’t you wanna do this? I said, well, not a very good site reader.
He says, you gotta be [00:40:00] kidding me. I don’t believe you. I’ve heard you play. You don’t. I’m not, I’m telling you the truth. He said, come over my house. I went over his house, we played duets. And I proved to him that I wasn’t a very good reader. And he said, I’m gonna help you. And I went over his house every week and he helped me and he helped me become a pretty decent set reader.
At least I could hang on, you know? And, uh, he started getting me on some of these shows at some of these record dates. I, I owe that all to Kenny Fork.
Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: So yeah, it’s those kind of connections. And how did you say, how did you end up meeting him or
CHRIS LABARBERA: He was always around. I always heard his name. I thought when I was a kid, I thought his name was Kenny Fork, but it was folk, F-A-U-L-K and Falk.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Falk, yeah. he’s from Salina, Kansas. he called me up to do this rehearsal band and we, you know, I knew him a little bit because we, we had actually traded Bob Reeves sleeves.
You know, there was a time in my life where I went absolutely berserk with those sleeves. Okay. I was,
JOHN SNELL: connection is made
CHRIS LABARBERA: oh
JOHN SNELL: Bob Reeves sleeves.
CHRIS LABARBERA: boy, [00:41:00] lemme tell you, I was so nuts with those things. One night I was coming home from, from a Latin gig in Dade County, and I was on the turnpike and I took the sleeves and I threw ’em out of the car.
I said, that’s it. I’m staying with the number 4.5. I’m not playing any of these other ones. I threw ’em out the window. Next day I went back looking for them. I swear to God, just true story. I went back looking for those.
JOHN SNELL: I love it.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yep. Yep. I mean, I would be on, again, there’d be a four bar break. I’d changed the sleeve, try to change the sleeve real quick, you know, and then it gets stuck in the horn and you gotta have a little half inch wrench to get it out, you know?
Yeah. I was, I went nuts with those things. So we traded sleeves. That’s how I knew him. That’s how I got to know him. That’s how I met him. And then he called me to this rehearsal band. I told him what my deal was. I wasn’t a very good reader. And then he helped me. He basically schooled me in the art of, uh, site reading.
And I never got to be a phenomenal site reader like him, but he helped me where I was good enough, I could play a show. I could hang on, on one of the under parts. And I could, uh, I could do a record date, So I went out to Kenny.
JOHN SNELL: wait, [00:42:00] how did your career, progress from there? And you, you’re
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well, I mean, from,
JOHN SNELL: um
CHRIS LABARBERA: From Kenny. I mean, he got me on a lot of stuff. I mean, I did, I did Ray Charles with him. I did Frank Sinatra Junior with him. I did, played all the, all the acts that came through town, the B gees, donna Summer, um, all the acts that came through town, you know, anybody that came through town, Wayne Newton,
JOHN SNELL: the,
CHRIS LABARBERA: anybody like that, I was there with Kenny, it was like a gradual thing you just, or did you just
I was,
JOHN SNELL: on a list of
CHRIS LABARBERA: it was a gradual thing. It was a gradual thing. Yeah. It was a gradual thing. And because I was a really good, I was, I mean, I’m not trying to toot my own horn, you know, no pun intended
JOHN SNELL: it’s your episode. You’re allowed to, it’s fine.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Because I was a pretty good soloist and I was good with the plunger, and I could play a lot of different styles from being a kid listening to Dogg, those Ro Elridge records and Louis Armstrong records and Dizzy, and I had really good chops.
I had a very good upper register, so they, they liked having me around. they just liked having me around, even if it took me a little time to learn the parts. the guys liked having me in the section. So I kind of got a little bit of a reputation and people started calling. [00:43:00] That’s how it happened.
JOHN SNELL: start covering and yeah, you could cover a lot of bases with the soloing and the stylistically if you’re playing with Ray Charles versus
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Sinatra Jr. Or something like that. Certainly.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Right, right. Exactly.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. So have you spent your whole career down in in Florida? Did you
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yes.
JOHN SNELL: the road or,
CHRIS LABARBERA: I was offered to go on the road many times and I didn’t go. I regret it now, but, I guess I just liked, sleeping in my own bed and go into my own refrigerator, you know? Yeah. No, I, I never, I never went on the road for real. I did gigs out of town, I’d take a plane.
Go to Dallas, play a gig and then come back, a couple days later. But I never really went on the road, like Pete Olston, Pete was on the road for years with a lot of different guys,
I wish I’d had, I really do. I regret that I didn’t, I had a chance to go and on the Buddy Rich band, and I, uh, I didn’t go.
And I really, I really regret that. I remember, when I got friendly with Roger Ingram, he, wanted to get me on, on a tour with Maynard. And then when I found out what had paid, I said, I, [00:44:00] I can’t go out. It was like three 50 a week. It was nothing. I was making way more than that in town. But I didn’t go,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I should have gone, I should have taken the loss and gone. I really should have. But at the time, you know, I owned a house, I was married, I said, I can’t leave my wife in the house and everything for three 50 a week. I can make that in a couple of days here,
JOHN SNELL: yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: really good money,
JOHN SNELL: yeah, I mean, yeah, there’s the trade off of, I mean, the experience of playing with Main Art and
CHRIS LABARBERA: Right, right.
JOHN SNELL: in that section, that whole band actually, especially
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well,
JOHN SNELL: and,
CHRIS LABARBERA: was making 2,500 a week with Harry Connick in those days. He was still with Harry when I was hanging out with him. He was still doing the road trips with Harry. So he was doing very well and he was doing good in town. He was doing very good in town.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. giving up that much money to go on the road is different. Especially having a, like you said, a home, having
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. I bought
A house.
JOHN SNELL: it’s a
To give up.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I was married, I bought a house by that time, had a couple of cars,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: you know, I was paying bills and, electric bill and the water bill and, when I thought I paid maybe, [00:45:00] you know, 800 a week, eight 50 a week or something. And then when he said to me three 50 a week.
He had already told Ed Sergeant about me, he was called right from my house. He called Ed right in my living room and he said, I got this guy. You’re gonna love him. He’s a great soloist. He’s got great chops. Mayer’s gonna love him. And then when I found out the money, I said, I can’t do it. I just can’t.
How am I gonna tell my wife that? You know?
JOHN SNELL: You’re doing what? Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah.
JOHN SNELL: And then you find yourself on a bus
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yep.
JOHN SNELL: middle of Iowa
CHRIS LABARBERA: Absolutely. Ab
JOHN SNELL: on a
CHRIS LABARBERA: absolutely.
JOHN SNELL: drive.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I do regret it. I do wish I had done, I do have a big regret that I never done.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Just probably it’s just at the wrong time, probably if you had been younger
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: in that
CHRIS LABARBERA: That’s when you live with your parents and you got your room and you need know, lock your room up and you say, Hey, bye mom. Bye dad. I’ll be back in six weeks.
JOHN SNELL: I mean, I know Miami and Southern Florida is known for their Latin music scene as well. Did you get involved with that? Any, like
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh yeah.
JOHN SNELL: or
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: was a lot of work in those days. No not anymore, but back in those days, just there were, like I said, there was a million nightclubs. [00:46:00] Hial was a heavily Cuban area and, uh, I mean, there were maybe seven or eight nightclubs with bands. Some of these nightclubs used to have, there was a club out in West Hial called Club International big place.
They had three bands a night, and I’m talking like eight 10 piece Latin bands. Big Latin bands, three at night. One would come on and do a set from, nine 30 to, you know, maybe 12. Then another band would come on from, 1230 to, two in the morning. And then another band would come on at two o’clock in the morning and play at four.
I mean, it was unbelievable. It was so much going on. It was just, it was this whole area was just swinging. I mean, there were, there were guys that sold used cards and they stopped doing that and they started playing trumpet. I mean, that’s how busy it was. No kidding. I’m not getting stuff dead serious.
Yep. There were guys with day jobs. They quit the day jobs, you know, they were. Decent trumpet players. Not great, but they started just playing in bands because there was so much work.
JOHN SNELL: what a scene So you got to experience all of that. And then I [00:47:00] wanna go back ’cause after your time with Doc Reinhardt, did you have any other teachers that were influential on you? Or was that Doc
CHRIS LABARBERA: No, he was pretty much, him and Vinny Tanner were the two big ones. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Those were your two big ones.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. Vinny and him
JOHN SNELL: and then we haven’t talked about equipment yet, so what what were you using then and has, you know, horn mouthpiece, you’d mentioned working with Bill Ratzenberger, you know, using the reef sleeves. What horn have you, were you using then? And
CHRIS LABARBERA: Those days. In those days, I used to love those gets and severance and models because Vinny played one, so I had to play with
So I had one and, uh, I used it for years and years. I, you know, I had the large bore, like Johnny Adino and Vinny, they both had the large bore severance. I had one I played for years.
Then I went to the medium large bores. I thought, geez, maybe I’m working a little too hard with this. Let me try a medium large. And I love the medium, large ones large. And, there was a guy out there in LA who used to find him for me. I lost touch with him. Maybe you heard his name?
John Goldman?
JOHN SNELL: Oh yeah, I know John.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. I, yeah. I’d love to get,
JOHN SNELL: a small, I went to, I went to school with John.
CHRIS LABARBERA: oh, he used to find [00:48:00] me all kinds of beautiful severances and gettes.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: he was the salesman. He was the salesman for Gatson. He had the, uh, he had the western territory. He had Las Vegas and, and in California.
JOHN SNELL: never told me he did that. How funny.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah, he, yeah, he was a,
JOHN SNELL: could have to talk to him.
CHRIS LABARBERA: oh yeah, he was a salesman.
Foren. And, he used to find me all kinds of really nice severances and send ’em to me. I mean, they were like, between three 50 and 500. I think the most I ever paid was five bills for a really nice one. I mean, one, it was like a new old stock, one that like fell behind a shelf and was sitting there for 15 years and then, oh, look at this, a brand new against trumpet.
John would call me and say, I got a great one for you. And we had a serial number range that we thought was like the best ones, you know? And he would say,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah
CHRIS LABARBERA: he’d say, this is the 17,000. You gotta get this one. This is a great one. And he’d send it to me. And he was right. He was always right.
He’d test them out, you know? So I got a lot of really great guests and trumpets from him.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. What a, you know, he teaches up in this area from time to time, so he’ll drop in. So
[00:49:00] In
CHRIS LABARBERA: I’d love for you to, I’d love for you to give him a number and have him call me.
JOHN SNELL: certainly. Yeah. I’ll make the, yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: He came to Florida. He came to Florida one time and we hung out. We had a great time.
JOHN SNELL: oh
CHRIS LABARBERA: I really miss him.
JOHN SNELL: guy and.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I really miss him. I’m glad I found somebody who knows him. ’cause I asked all kinds of, Hey, you know this guy John Goldman, you know this guy?
Yeah. He would find me. Those gets its, man, he was so resourceful, that guy.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, actually, he’s a great drum player himself. I
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: really thankful to go to school with him, get to know him.
CHRIS LABARBERA: What’s your plan on now?
JOHN SNELL: Well that’s the million dollar question. He’s like, he had an old binge last time I saw him. He had a binge used binge that he found that was just gorgeous. And then, yeah, I think he was on a getson at one point, which now would make sense.
But he’s always buying and selling and trading horns,
CHRIS LABARBERA: I gotta tell, I gotta tell you about this horn. He found me. It was, I should have kept it, you know, I, I’ll tell you, I had so many horns that I should have kept and I traded ’em off for something else, you know? But, um, he found me a trumpet once. You know, we went into the gson, Tim and I, he found me this lacquered [00:50:00] gson from about 19 68, 67.
He’d had someone, Mickey McMahon from, the Lawrence woke band had taken it to Dominic, Dominic Gio. And he had a Collicchio bell and a Kao lead pipe on it had a Collicchio number two bell, and I forget which lead pipe it had on it. And it was a, it was a good, really good player. And you know, I had it for a while and like everything else, like I was looking for greener pastures, you know, it was always a better one, always a better one.
And you know, John was no help. He was a bed full time. He would call me all the time, Hey, I found another one. so, you know, I couldn’t keep, I always had two or three ones in the house and I would trade one off, and if another one, another one came in, I trade another one off. And, you know, that’s how it was for years.
Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. So what are you using now? What do you, have you settled on something?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well, I then I I went into a music store, this really great repairman in town that everybody went to. And a very dear friend, man named Tom Lidle. They had, they were the repairman for all the good players in town. They had a business, Lidle and Shaz. Tom Lidle [00:51:00] did the bras work, Al Shaz did the reeds.
And he had a con 60 B in there. And I, I’d never heard of that horn. I’d heard of the constellations and when I was a kid I had a director but I saw the 60 BI loved the way it played. It, it played like it getson only a little more bright, a little more centered. and in those days there was no way to really find out about a horn. There was no internet. So I asked around, nobody had heard of it. Nobody knew what it was. and I played it for a while and I loved it.
And then I traded it off for, for something else, probably another cats who knows. And I don’t remember now. It was a real nice silver one too. and I always was looking for oth for more for other ones. And then when the internet started coming out, I was able to find them a lot easier. and now I have two of them.
I have a blacker and a silver one that I’ve had for years.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. and then mouthpiece wise, I know you talked about jet tone, maybe a few. Reeves, what are you using now?
CHRIS LABARBERA: well, Terry Warburg moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1980, so we had a mouthpiece maker in [00:52:00] town. he made me some mouthpieces. And then I got to be friendly with a guy who started working for him named Kenny Tus.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Kenny. Yeah, Kenny and I became really close friends Kenny did all my work after that.
I played mostly Kenny Tus stuff, but I did use a Bob Reeves two number two backboard for years. I had this really good 41 s and I had him thread the backboard, and I used it, uh, on a war burden top for years and years and years. and I gave Kenny one of my spare Reeves number twos.
And while he was working for Terry, on the sneak, he would play that res too. You know, he loved it too. He was crazy for that backboard. That’s a great back, that’s a really great backboard you guys make.
JOHN SNELL: Well, I mean, that’s Bob, I, Bob’s story he told it on, I interviewed Bob one of the early podcasts. He talked about how he, developed the two back boar and, that’s like the Bach 37 bell. It’s like, you
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah, that’s a
JOHN SNELL: he
CHRIS LABARBERA: fantastic backboard. It’s just a great commercial. They can do anything with that backboard, and I used it with a Warbird [00:53:00] top for years and years and years and years. I still have that backboard. I can show it to you right now. I still have it. I’ll never sell it. I’ll always keep it in.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. but it’s great. I mean, Kenny’s doing some fabulous work now on his own. I see the stuff he’s doing, and yeah,
CHRIS LABARBERA: A good guy.
A good guy.
JOHN SNELL: fabulous machinist mouthpiece maker and a fabulous trumpet player as
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah, he’s a
JOHN SNELL: So,
CHRIS LABARBERA: lead player. Wonderful lead trumpet player. Excellent.
JOHN SNELL: Hats off. Hats off to Kenny Warburg’s. Terry’s not too bad himself either.
CHRIS LABARBERA: No. That’s a good guy. He’s a good,
JOHN SNELL: he and Bob Reeves were dear friends,
CHRIS LABARBERA: yeah. Yeah, Terry. Terry loves to travel. Terry was always taking a plane somewhere. He loved to go travel, so I know he was out there to play a lot.
JOHN SNELL: yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I’m sure you guys Sure. You guys met up at the shows and stuff, the trade shows.
JOHN SNELL: Oh yeah. Well, he, and he flew out for Bob’s our 45th and then our 50th anniversary. He came out and visited, and Bob was there. We were there for Terry’s, I guess 40th or 45th at the store. And
CHRIS LABARBERA: I,
JOHN SNELL: 2019, so yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I think I saw a picture somewhere. [00:54:00] Somebody sent me a picture years ago of, all the mouthpiece makers. It was Terry, Bob, Scott Laskey, who else was in there, but, oh, John Stork. A bunch of guys.
JOHN SNELL: Stork. Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: all the mouthpiece. All the mouthpiece makers in this one picture. Really nice picture. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Maybe Greg Black. Yeah, I mean
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: not as many as there used to be, you know, rest in peace, Scott, and a number of those. But yeah, it’s I won’t say it’s a lost art form, but it’s, there’s more and more C NNC stuff going back kind of to our previous conversation. but there’s still a lot of, you know, Greg Black still doing custom stuff.
Terry Warburg, Ken Titmus is doing the custom work and, a lot of folks still doing, carrying on that legacy of the craftsmanship. So, but yeah, having Terry and then Ken in your own backyard is, quite a privilege.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: an opportunity.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I mean, you know, most trumpet players in those days had no idea how a mouthpiece was made. you knew what they, you bought one and you played it, you know?
JOHN SNELL: yeah. Oh, it just comes out of a mold and you plug it in. Nope. I know there’s a lot
CHRIS LABARBERA: You know, that’s actually what I thought. I thought they [00:55:00] were casted. That’s what I thought when I was young and I was like, fascinated watching Terry make a mouthpiece. I was like, that’s how you make, wow. That’s how they’re made, you know? Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: So I also, I, I wanna talk about, you know, covered your, uh, a good part of your playing career. I mean, you’re known as the person to go to for Reinhardt information and teaching, and I know you spent a lot of your time teaching lessons in person, but also on Skype online and stuff. so how were you teaching this whole time? Or did you start getting into that?
CHRIS LABARBERA: I didn’t start to teach. I didn’t have to. I was so busy playing. It was so much work. I didn’t need to teach. I ne didn’t teach, never taught a lesson for maybe 20, 25 years. I never taught a lesson. And then
JOHN SNELL: Really?
CHRIS LABARBERA: like 2010, maybe 2012, something like that, I started to teach because the work started getting less and less, the background track started coming in.
The nightclubs started closing up. there’s so much entertainment right in your house now. You don’t have to ever go outta your house anymore. it’s a problem,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. So, so your teaching started, taking [00:56:00] off. I want to we talk a little bit about kinda the basics of the Reinhardt, system and his teachings. I do want to have, you know, talk a few different topics about that though. I mean the internet is a wonderful resource, but it’s also. A terrible place for information sometimes. ’cause you know, Bob had a great saying. You know, but basically everyone has an opinion, right? It’s,
CHRIS LABARBERA: I know.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. But, you could get online and if you’re on a forum or on Facebook or something, and you could pretend to know about Reinhardt’s systems and the categorizations and things, but and then people see that on a Google search and think, oh, this is what Doc Reinhardt meant. So with that context, what are some of like the big misconceptions that you’ve seen? You know, now you know that you’ve been teaching it.
CHRIS LABARBERA: The big misconception is that the pivot changing the angle of the trumpet drastically as you change register. that’s the big misconception. That’s always been the big misconception. it’s very difficult for somebody to just buy his books and read stuff online without having somebody take them through it.
You [00:57:00] know, you have to have somebody that knows it and take ’em through it. mostly because, you know, Reinhart Reinhart, made it very complicated. he liked to use a lot of big words, and he liked to use a lot of long-winded sentences and stuff like that.
And need someone who can take you through it, knows what it’s all about, before I give a lesson, I send out, about 16 pages of material for them to look at. It’s about half text and half trumpet exercise. And I tell ’em to just look over the text, read it a little bit if you can, and just take a look at the exercises, don’t practice them.
And then we’ll go over them in the lesson, one at a time. I go over the lesson, the exercises with them one at a time just to make sure they’re doing ’em the way that Reinhart wanted them to be played. You know, there’s a certain way to play them, you know, certain volume, and in a certain way a manner of doing them.
And I, I just make sure they’re doing ’em right. I look at their chops and I tell ’em what I see. I tell ’em what I think they should try to correct to improve their playing. And that’s about the size of it. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Hmm. I know, [00:58:00] I mean, like there’s controversies and things online that shouldn’t be there. but you know, I I’ve, some of the things I’ve read are like, well, why do you need to know what Asure you are? Like, shouldn’t you just, you know, holistically play the trumpet correctly or listened to the sound?
And, or you think about your chops, your sound goes out the window, things like that.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Why does it go, why does Tiger Woods have a swing coach? Why does every great baseball player have a swing coach? hey, your left foot is too far out, you know, oh, you’re dropping your shoulder when you swing the club, your right shoulder’s not high enough when you swing the bat.
I mean, they all have swing coaches. Think about that. the problem with the trumpet is, it’s not like the piano or the guitar. There’s the musical part and there’s the physical part. And without the physical part, you can’t have the musical part. I mean,
JOHN SNELL: said.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I mean, you can, you’re not gonna have a lot of range, you’re not gonna have much endurance if you don’t have the physical part down. You gotta have the physical part down, and you also gotta have a good mouthpiece, which just speaks to your trade. You
JOHN SNELL: And you’re not making any commission on the sales. I’m not just, I wanna have that out there. Not that [00:59:00] you’re excited. No, I’m
we haven’t paid you for say these nice things.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I’m just saying it’s very important for a player to have a good relationship with a mouthpiece maker. It’s very important. That’s an important part of trumpet player. You should have a relationship with a mouthpiece maker. You should have a, a one-on-one with a mouthpiece maker. That’s very important.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. And even an instrument maker, although there’s so many instruments out there and
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: good
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: But really it’s like, yeah, the mouthpiece is like the pair of shoes. That’s the connection. And there’s a lot of instruments that can just be in the ballpark. And if your rim is uncomfortable, for instance, it doesn’t matter how good the instrument is.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well, I’ll tell you a funny story about Reinhard with Mouthpieces. he loved those Silky 13 A four A’s, and the six A four a’s he thought. You gotta remember in those days, there wasn’t much around. Like I said, it was hard to get a Bob Re’s mouthpiece in those days. It was very difficult.
So, guys played, jet Tone, Elli Silky A Box, and he loved those 13 A forays and the six A forays. And he had a box of each. He had, half a dozen, [01:00:00] six a forays and maybe a dozen 13 A for a, and when you went there, he didn’t, he, if you were gonna be a commercial player, he wanted you to play smaller mouthpiece.
You know, you couldn’t walk in there with a three C and say, yeah, I wanna be a lead trumpet player. He would say, go to that box. Bring that box over here. try some of those mouthpieces, the 13 A four A and if you could handle it, have you play the six a four A Me? I could never play either one.
They never had enough undercut for me. they didn’t ever have enough room in the cup. I always had a problem. I always tried to play the 13 a four A. Always wanted to play it, you know, he, he wanted me to play it, but I never could use it. Never did.
Never.
JOHN SNELL: could get into it. Yeah. Well, Chris, I should have you on every episode ’cause you like you do better than I do. It. Like kind of plugging us every 10 or 15 minutes for something and it’s,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh, listen, I listen.
JOHN SNELL: It.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Bob was a great guy. I really liked him. He spent a lot of time with me on the phone. I heard a lot of his stories, his Johnny Orino stories, his Bud Bboy stories. His Bill Chase stories. Heard a ton of them. Yeah
he was a good guy. [01:01:00] I really do miss talking to him.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. I wish you were out here in the other Hollywood. It’d be nice to have you close and have you dropping by,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. I
JOHN SNELL: Especially with food,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: um, In your teaching. ’cause I know, you know, a lot of other schools like, folks that have studied with Jimmy Stamp or studied with William Adams, something like that, they stick to their teachings and rete and things like that and whatnot, but then also add their own take or other, pull from other schools of pedagogy and your teaching.
Are there things like that you do or is it pretty strict to what Doc Reinhart
CHRIS LABARBERA: No, Taught
No. I’m flexible. I realize that, people have different issues and, I don’t adhere strictly to what Reinhard said or, or what he did. I’m, I’ve been accused of that by some people, but I’m not, I’m not like that. No, I’m not like that at all.
No. Especially, especially if I get an older player, somebody, you know, that’s in their forties, fifties maybe. I would tell them, you might wanna work on this, and if it becomes an issue, then stop, leave it alone. Because you don’t wanna put somebody in a spin. You [01:02:00] definitely don’t wanna put somebody brass playing spin as NAR used to say, you don’t wanna throw a guy in a spin and have him have, chop trouble because he took a lesson with you.
I would never wanna do that to a guy, never wanna do that to a trumpet player. So, uh, I respect, a person’s age and I respect that. when you are uh, 20 years old, you can break a bad habit in a couple of weeks, but it’s not the case when 50. You know what I mean?
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. did Reinhardt and then by extension you have any opinion on mouthpiece buzzing or free buzzing, any of that sort of thing?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well, he didn’t care for that. He felt it was the wrong resistance mount peace clothing. He wanted you to play the horn. He wanted you to play the, that’s what he was about. Yeah.
He was into lip buzzing. He was into what people call free buzzing. he was really big into that, especially for downstream types.
He was really into it. And I use that, in certain, correctional procedures, with younger players. Like I said, I don’t really mess too much with the older guys. I’ll give them suggestions. I’ll give them tips. I’ll help ’em as much as I can. But like I said, I don’t wanna put anybody [01:03:00] into a spin into a problem,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. And then routine. What is it? Do you have a daily, like maintenance practice routine?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Well, I mean,
JOHN SNELL: that changed through the years?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Reinhard has several different warmups that I use. He had one called Warmup 57. I used that sometimes. He had something called the cheek routines. I used that sometimes. there were several different ones. I rotate ’em out, you know. He had something called the summer routine. I gave that to Pete loves that thing.
He’s been doing it for months and months now. He’s crazy about it.
JOHN SNELL: which one was that?
CHRIS LABARBERA: The summer routine? Yeah,
it’s out of his pivot manual that he published in 1942. The text in there is really old fashioned. He changed a lot of his opinions on things from the forties to the, seventies and eighties.
So you don’t go by that text at all. the text is irrelevant today, but, uh, the summer routine, it’s, uh, we, you had a metronome and you set it on the, and you play through this thing. It takes about 20 minutes and you keep the mouthpiece on.
during the rests, it’s kind of a long setting thing it [01:04:00] goes up to high G. You can take it up to double C if you want. It starts in the middle register and gradually works its way up. And I used to do it up to, double C every day. And I gave it to Pete.
He’s, he loves it. I, everybody I’ve given it to really enjoys it. So I use that one Sometimes, there’s different things, but there’s not that much work around anymore, so I don’t really practice that much. I don’t play that much anymore.
JOHN SNELL: You are not, but, uh, I mean, up until what, say maybe COVID, is that
CHRIS LABARBERA: Yeah. Oh,
JOHN SNELL: you said you would rotate. Rotate the routines around.
CHRIS LABARBERA: absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve just kind of been forced it to semi-retirement, that’s all.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. That’s happened. Uh, yeah. I know a lot of folks like
CHRIS LABARBERA: I’m sure
JOHN SNELL: COVID
CHRIS LABARBERA: it’s happened to a lot of players. Yeah. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. But I know you still do a lot of teaching. You get the horn out for that as well,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh, absolutely. I take the ho out every lesson. Sure. Oh, absolutely. When COVID hit, I had four steady jobs in nightclubs
All those four, all four places closed down per
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I was, yeah.
JOHN SNELL: shame. Yeah. That’s a sign of the times, but hopefully the pendulum will swing back [01:05:00] the other way and,
CHRIS LABARBERA: the problem is these background tracks, these one man bands with these background tracks that’s killed the nightclub music business. He used to be able to go into a nightclub and hear a trio, a quartet, or at least a piano and an instrumentalist. Now you go in and it’s one person with a microphone and a thousand background tracks.
That’s the problem. That’s the big problem with music business background tracks. They’ve ruined it all.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. It’s not the same preaching to the choir, but it’s
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh yeah.
JOHN SNELL: one wants to hear that.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Absolutely not. But people that. most people just don’t really care. You know, the average person,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, Chris, it’s been an absolute honor having you on. We went over an hour. I was looking up at the time and a great conversation.
CHRIS LABARBERA: I enjoyed every minute of this. I really enjoyed talking to you, a great guy, and, I would do this anytime. I know you don’t need another second one, but I’m just saying I really enjoyed
JOHN SNELL: hey, you,
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh
JOHN SNELL: I love doing follow ups, especially ’cause folks, well, John, you didn’t ask about this or you should have followed up on that, so, yeah, we’ll, we’ll do a follow up at some point and, uh, or maybe we can [01:06:00] get Pete on here as well. We can do,
CHRIS LABARBERA: that would be fantastic. Oh, he’s, he’s such a good guy. He’s, he’s one of my closest friends. He really is. He’s a wonderful guy, a great trumpet player.
JOHN SNELL: love Pete. So, can’t say enough about him.
Before I let you go, Chris I have one last question for you. And it’s a, it’s some folks find it to be a doozy. but if you could leave our listeners or viewers on YouTube, with your best piece of advice, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be trumpet related although it can be what would that piece of advice be?
CHRIS LABARBERA: Learn a trade. Learn a trade. My father was an air conditioning mechanic. My grandfather was a welder. My grandfather was also an electrician. My whole family were tradespeople. You know, Italians, all electricians, plumbers, mechanics, air conditioning. And uh, I was offered many times as a youngster to learn a trade.
And I said, that’s for squares. I’m a musician. I’m a jazz trumpet player. I’m not gonna work with tools, you know, and so yeah, learn a trade. Learn a trade. That’s my advice. Learn a trade.
JOHN SNELL: that’s great advice. And uh, it’s [01:07:00] something that I fell into and
CHRIS LABARBERA: Oh, no, listen. Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: very thankful because, uh, I can, can combine passions and still play and
CHRIS LABARBERA: Absolutely.
JOHN SNELL: to but I also have the fulfillment in knowing that I can make something with my hands. So, absolutely.
Great advice, Chris.
CHRIS LABARBERA: You were trained by one of the original masters, Bob Res. Get a better teacher.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, Brett, Kendall and I very thankful every day. So Chris, absolute honor having you on. Thank you so much for your time and all the wonderful stories. And we gotta we gotta go out for Italian food. I’m gonna come down and visit you and one way or the other we’ll meet, but there has to be food involved.
CHRIS LABARBERA: Okay? All right. You got it, John.
JOHN SNELL: Alright,
JOHN SNELL: Well, a huge thank you to Chris. What a great conversation. And I have to give a little special shout out to Pete Sted, former guest here on the, uh, podcast. Pete got us in touch. I’ve been wanting to have a Reinhardt student on the, the. Podcast for well over a decade now. It’s crazy to think about, for quite a while.
And, uh, you know, I’m running a mouthpiece shop most of the [01:08:00] time, and as much as I’d love to dedicate more time to researching guests and reaching out to people, that, the reality is it just doesn’t happen. And, and so sometimes they fall right in my lap. I was, I think I was over in Sweden, visiting, uh, VIN Mutes.
And when I got the text from Pete and said, Hey, you should have Chris on, here’s his contact information. so lo and behold thank you Pete for making that contact and a huge thank you for Chris for sharing your stories. I did not lie during the podcast. I went right out and went to my favorite Italian restaurant after, after Chris was talking about showing up to his lessons with, uh.
Homemade Italian food. but, uh, food aside, uh, the more important lessons from the podcast were certainly, I mean the misnomers about the Reinhardt system, the insights, into how you can think about, you know, depending on how your, uh, omnisure is, how you hold the horn, things like that. Just naturally a plane.
No pun intended to those benefits. and exercises and things that strengthen those kinds of things, and how to recognize ’em. [01:09:00] So great insights there. Great insights into a busy freelance career outside of the major markets. not to say that there’s nothing going on in, uh, Florida and Miami, ’cause there is certainly a vibrant scene, back in the day down there and, uh, have one of the.
Best players to do it in Chris Lebar. So huge thank you to Chris for your time. we have some wonderful interviews coming up. Dave Atmi had a great conversation with that fine young player. the last of the trilogy, if you will, of Dave Douglas’s alloy project over the summer. Of course, Alexandra Ridout, Dave and the now, uh, the other Dave at Dave Douglas and now Dave atmi.
We had a great talk about jazz and life and trumpet. so that’ll be up next. Kate Moore is in the queue. Along with a lot of other guests, Rick Braun, will be up in the relatively near future and some other surprises that I can’t quite spill the beans about yet. So, hit that subscribe button. If you’re watching this on YouTube, I mean, you know the deal, feed the algorithm, feed the monster, hit that, like, hit that notification, leave a comment, [01:10:00] hopefully positive, all of the things to help us remain visible.
to the brass community. It’s a labor of love. oh, and by the way those of you listening, we do have a trombone podcast and we do have a horn podcast. And even though some of it’s apples and oranges, a lot of what our other guests on the horn and. Trombone podcasts talk about is applicable.
And don’t worry, I plug the Trumpet podcast over on that side as well. speaking of which, the Trombone corner will have Joe Lesi up next, not too shabby. And on the Horn podcast, we just interviewed Phil Yao, which many of you may not know the name. he was a one of those in the trenches studio Horn players here in LA for decades.
I mean, we’re talking 1500 plus films tv. Records. And, not to ruin the surprise, but his career was cut short by focal dystonia rather abruptly, like literally overnight. so fascinating story. Phil was amazing, very honest, very vulnerable, [01:11:00] very humble, about his life story and the reasons that, led up to his focal dystonia.
So check that out over on the horn signal. Of course, the Trombone Corner is our trombone podcast, and that’s enough for today. Thank you for listening. Until next time, let’s go out and make some music.
