John Snell Trumpet Interview
Welcome to the show notes for Episode #139 of The Other Side of the Bell – A Trumpet Podcast. This episode features our own podcast host and trumpeter John Snell. Listen to or download the episode below:
About John Snell
Who is the man behind the microphone?
John Snell & Vinnie Ciesielski episode links
Podcast Credits
- “A Room with a View“ – composed and performed by Howie Shear
- Audio Engineer – Ted Cragg
- Podcast Host – Vinnie Ciesielski! with 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 –
VINNIE C: Whoa. Hold on, John.
JOHN SNELL: What are,
VINNIE C: Hold. Hold on a sec. This is Vinny Ciesielski and actually, surprise, we’re gonna turn the tables on you today. I’m gonna host and you are gonna be in that cherry hot seat answering all the questions.
JOHN SNELL: Oh my gosh. This is a today on a very special episode of Blossom (both laugh). Well, Vinny, [00:01:00] I mean, first of all, you’re looking great. Uh, I’m nervous. I’m excited to do this, and the, the leverage you have on me to get me to do this, I’ve, I’ve been honored since we started doing this podcast. I’ve gotten several emails asking for me to be on here, and I’ve always politely declined and somehow something about you, you got leverage on me to actually sit down and do an interview.
VINNIE C: I think it was relentless determination and tenacity because we talked about it a couple of times at the Adam Fest where you and I were both in attendance and, uh, and you said, yeah, call me in a couple weeks and we will figure it out. And dang, well, I’ll tell you what. Emails and texts and calls and arm twisting and now we’re here.
Here we go.
JOHN SNELL: And here we are. I’m nervous. I’m excited. So, but first let’s get to a word from our sponsor and some trumpet news. [00:02:00]
– ad break –
[00:03:00] Let’s uh, delay this interview as long as possible. You know, my, my trumpet my, one of my first trumpet teachers bill Bing always said, you know, preparing for a recital and the days leading up, uh, to your recital is like, uh, the days before your own beheading. And I, and I think, I don’t know, I think I’d rather. Maybe play the tomasi next week than talk about myself. But we’re, I’m, in good hands. I’m excited. normally I talk about shop goings on and, you know, Alvin mutes and shires horns and guard bags and trumpet mouthpieces. Uh, since you’re joining us and spending your time to interview me, Vinny why don’t you talk a little bit about what you’ve been doing, how Vinny and the hitman and what you’ve been doing.
VINNIE C: Man, it’s boy, it’s been a great year. I mean, full of music. And I just posted yesterday full of music and joy and love laughter. Couple weeks ago I played with, uh, Frankie Val. A lot of guys have done that gig, but the special thing about this was, it was in my mom’s hometown.
JOHN SNELL: Oh
VINNIE C: Uh,
we were gonna try and [00:04:00] surprise her, but it’s literally impossible to surprise her.
So a couple weeks before I said, Hey, I’m coming up for the show, and she was thrilled. She was sitting directly in front of the horn section by happenstance, uh, about 10 rows back, and just once it got dark and the lights would go out there. I saw this beautiful head of silver hair and a big toothy smile.
She was very happy to see Frankie and uh, and her boy. And then right after that I went back up to Ocean City and, uh, played with some very old friends that most I’ve known since 1980, in a little reunion band. And then when I came back here, hit the ground running, I have done. Uh, let’s see, with trumpet stacks, trumpets and flu horns, four passes of trumpet, five passes of trumpet, three or four passes of flu horn. Six brutal gospel tunes over the last couple days, but they are unbelievably funky and fire and deliver the message in a big way. And a couple sing song singer songwriters sing. So I’ve been busier than [00:05:00] a one arm paper hanger, as they say.
JOHN SNELL: Awesome. Well, that’s amazing. And Frankie, Val, I mean, he’s up there, right? He’s 93, 94. Something like
VINNIE C: He’s 91 and this is the, you know, the finale tour that he’s gonna extend by a year. He’s like the, he’s like the energizer bunny man. I, I don’t know how he does it. And the band is killing and the production. Yeah, it’s
JOHN SNELL: and, And what a cool thing to do for your mom. I’m sure she was proud of you playing
VINNIE C: well, she’s, she’s a huge fan of Frankie. When I played with him years ago at the Ryman, I got one of those hatch prints and gave it to her and my dad as a gift, which she gave back to me once she moved. Um, and I’ve got it hanging on my wall. You can’t really see, but it’s over my.
Over my right hand shoulder and uh, yeah, she was a huge fan of him, but a much bigger fan of the trumpet player that day.
JOHN SNELL: Oh, cool. And then what, Vinny and the hitman, you got anything, uh, any projects in the work or anything you wanna share there?
VINNIE C: Well, we’re putting out, you know, about a song a month and we’ve started this comfort series, which [00:06:00] was, inspired by Yo-Yo Ma during COVID. He just started playing these classical melodies, familiar classical melodies, and he said, look. We’re all kind of confused and hurting and, and by ourselves.
And so if this three minutes of music brings you some comfort I’m happy. And through that inspiration, we started doing some of those. So those are really beautiful. And uh, yeah, we’re putting out a bunch of stuff. We have, um. Jeff Coffin from the Dave Matthews band is, uh, doing a song with us coming up that’ll be coming out in the next month or so.
And then early September we’re going in and doing, and when I say star studded, I mean wow. The guys that are playing on this record as guest artists with us, it’s just a, it’s a hero. List of players in LA and all over the country that are gonna come in and toot some notes. And so we’re doing a Christmas record then, and that’ll be out for this season.
Thank you for asking John. appreciate it, man. How cool. Well, what fun. Yeah. Keep [00:07:00] will keep us an elude. And then for the, for those folks listening Vinny, you were uh, our special guest I looked this up ’cause I swear, you know, we’re at what episode? 130 something. I thought you’d be like episode 110. Seems like yesterday 115, something like that.
JOHN SNELL: You were episode 93. So that was, it’s been a few years already. So folks listening, if you haven’t heard Vinny’s story, that was an amazing interview. talk a lot about. Positivity. I think you were doing the Facebook group back then or helping out with the what.
VINNIE C: Positive. Positive trumpeters worldwide.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, and you were just starting Vinny and the hitman at think at around that point.
if it’s come such a long way, so check out episode 93, scroll down a little bit in Spotify, uh, and hear uh, Vinny in the hot seat. So well, thanks for sharing all that stuff with us and uh, you know, shop staying busy here. I’m gonna keep it short ’cause our guest today is rather long-winded. So, so with that being said, let’s get to our special guest today.
Um, Me
VINNIE C: [00:08:00] John Snell is the co-owner of Bob Reeve’s Brass, where he is been a vital team member since 2001. After an extensive apprenticeship, he became the company’s. Lead valve alignment technician personally working on thousands of instruments since 2010.
John has also managed the business guiding its growth while maintaining its reputation for uncompromising craftsmanship. An accomplished trumpet player. John has performed with ensembles including the California Brass Ensemble. The North Ridge Brass Quintet, the San Bernardino Symphony, and as lead trumpet in the big band of barristers, a busy big band, made up of lawyers, judges, and law students.
He hosts three popular podcasts, the other side of the bell, the trombone corner, and the horn signal, [00:09:00] interviewing top brass musicians worldwide. John regularly presents clinics on trumpet. Equipment and the mindset across the us, Europe, Japan, and Australia.
VINNIE C: Hey everybody, it’s uh, Vinny Chesky here. I know this is a, a little bit of a different voice for you. You’re used to hearing the, uh, the Baso Profundo of, uh, my guest today. Uh, I was just telling my guest that, uh, I think this will be the most listened to podcast that he’s, uh, ever been a part of here on, uh, the other side of the bell.
it’s my pleasure to introduce to you the normal host of this podcast, John Snell. Hey, John. How are you today?
JOHN SNELL: I’m doing wonderful. I’m nervous.
I’m in the hot seat.
VINNIE C: I have like 50 questions that you’ve never heard in your life before. So look out pal.
JOHN SNELL: Sec. Second [00:10:00] valve. It’s second
VINNIE C: It is second
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. F sharp. Last I checked.
VINNIE C: unless you’re mad at the uh, vi violin players and then it’s first and third valve. You know what I’m
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
VINNIE C: Anyway John it’s really good to see you and thank you for, uh, thank you for listening to the idea.
I just, I just think it’s a great idea. I think you are as we talked about earlier, the enigma. I think people would be really interested to hear about your history and we’re gonna dig into, dig into everything. Uh, starting with a question that I may or may not have heard before, but did you find the trumpet or did the trumpet find you?
Tell us about how you started playing.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. I mean the trumpet definitely found me. in fact, I think I have a picture of me as like a 1-year-old or one and a half year old with a, my dad’s piccolo trumpet sitting on my lap and I’m playing it, strangely enough with a much better re than I have today. It’s been all downhill since then.
VINNIE C: You had much more time to practice back then.
JOHN SNELL: Uh, So [00:11:00] yeah, my, my dad is a professional trumpet player, and, uh, he’s been on the podcast a few years ago. Special Father’s Day interview, uh, episode. but he, I mean, as soon as I could breathe, he had a trumpet in my hands. And, uh, the, the longer story is a little more convoluted. I started in kindergarten around four or five, and it, it didn’t work out.
I was playing. I was, I remember one time I just broke down in tears and I put the trumpet away in the closet, and that was it. so maybe that was the, maybe I shouldn’t have, uh, this the subtitle of this episode will be, don’t let this happen to you. Um.
VINNIE C: A.
JOHN SNELL: But a cautionary tale. No. I just, I it was my dad was teaching me and trying to, and I just, that relationship of being told, well, you’re doing this wrong.
No matter how caring and correctly my dad tried to teach me at that age, I just, it didn’t work. And now fortuitously, now I’m in the same relationship with my son getting him to play. but [00:12:00] so fourth grade came around and it was time to pick a school instrument for the school band, and I wanted to play violin.
And, uh, my mom and dad said, well, we have this nice, uh, con director trumpet. Uh, we don’t really own a a a, a violin, so why don’t you play that again? And I was like, well, I had kind of a traumatic experience a few years ago. And they said, well, well, let’s try it again. And if you don’t like it. Once you play in the band, ’cause we think you’ll have a more fun, you know, more of a fun time once you get into the band and they’re teaching you and sure enough that they were correct.
And so I started, uh, Jackie Dwight, Mrs. Dwight, my first, uh, orchestra, fourth grade orchestra teacher. She was just a gem. And, uh, to think in, elementary school we had a district-wide, honors. It wasn’t even an honors orchestra, it was all of the elementary schools came together and there’s, you know, a hundred and some odd kids playing strings and woodwinds and brass and stuff.
And, um, a number of my friends from that fourth grade class went on to be teachers and professional musicians. [00:13:00] And it all started with my elementary teacher, you know,
VINNIE C: And now
JOHN SNELL: to her.
VINNIE C: And now. Yeah. No kidding man. Shout out to her for sure. We’ll have to let her know that this thing is dropping and that, she is credited with, uh, the long downhill slide that you’ve that you’ve explained.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
VINNIE C: And so I’m keenly interested because, My dad was a trumpet player when he was a kid and when I brought the bugle home from the drum and bugle corps, he taught me taps and revely the first night. And by the end of the first week, he said to my mom, he said, ah, we, we gonna have to get this kid trumpet lessons because, uh, he’s better than I ever was already.
So tell me about that dynamic. I mean, you went into it a little bit. Tell me about the dynamic between you and your dad. Was there eye rolling and God, dad and all that kind of stuff?
JOHN SNELL: No, and I don’t wanna make it worse than it actually was. And really the fault was on my side. My dad’s cheering somewhere in the world right now. ’cause I just put that [00:14:00] vibe out there. I actually admitted that I was wrong. Um,
VINNIE C: Your wife is too.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. Uh, And, but no, seriously, like he, he did everything he could.
to ensure my success in terms of getting me the equipment I needed, getting me the books I needed, and trying to communicate through my fixed skull what I needed, you know, to have fun playing, to make music, but also to get better at the trumpet. and ultimately what worked was him getting. teachers, private teachers for me, which ’cause he was a professional in la, he had, you know, the best money could buy uh, teach me and they still couldn’t get through my fixed skull.
But, um, but I, I did start progressing and was able to. Go on that route. And then, and this is what was just brilliant on my dad’s part, he found that he could teach me through playing duets. And so, even at a very, very young age, he would throw duets in front of me and just [00:15:00] play with me. And, you know, if I had problems with Syncopations, he’d put the amsden duets down, or if I had problems with this, or key signatures, he’d put, I mean, he had, uh, he loved duets and, he had a music library, so every day was something new.
It also was working on my site reading intonation and things, uh, subconsciously, you know, holistically. I had no idea what he was doing. I just, it was fun playing with dad, until we got to Mel Broyles and then it stopped being fun. Uh. That, that was torture. But so that, I mean, all throughout middle school, high school, college, we would spend, I, we’d spend hours playing duets sometimes or reading music and things like that.
And then every once in a while he would try to sneak something in like, Hey, you know, you’re doing this. And then I would break down a tear, you know, immediately that was triggered. You know, dad, I want you to love me. You know, I do love you, but you’re sharp. You know?
VINNIE C: I think that the best teachers the best teachers always find a way. [00:16:00] Uh, having just been at the Adam Fest and talking to all those guys, Carl and Charlie, and just, you know, Greg and, and all the cats. Kyle Gregory, who’s a good friend of mine, comes over to the house and, and, uh, schools me every once in a while.
He was a student of Mr. Adam for pro almost 20 years. I mean, he is like the closest degree to, to almost anybody. Mr. Adam would never let you know that he was. Fixing you. He would just find something. And I imagine this is what your dad was doing too. He would hear something in your playing switch books that would address that you were learning how to play you know, lead or first and second and then being able to follow in the pitch.
And I can’t imagine what a awesome memory that is, aside from the occasional crying jag.
JOHN SNELL: The occasional. Yeah. You know, we all have that, you know?
VINNIE C: yeah, a hundred percent man. A hundred percent. So, so tell me now, during that time, who were your teachers in la?
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, so I started with bill Bing, William Bing who was a, I would call [00:17:00] him a Jimmy Stamp student, but he studied with everybody, fabulous player here in LA and, uh, a wonderful mentor to me, and again, and I’m not just being what’s the word down on myself, but I, I he got me going.
I did, did the Stanford routine. I did buzzing. What was great about Bill was he exposed me to so many things. And I, this was like late middle school into the first few years of high school. the foundation was the Stanford routine and the buzzing and kind of expanding up and down into pedals and higher up buzzing and with the piano.
Um, and then, then playing the exercises on the trumpet. but he had me transcribing, he had me playing solos. He had me doing. Classical literature at solos. He had me doing, I, it felt like every week I was getting a new book, uh, that he found. ’cause he still studied, you know, and that, that was one of my first kind of eye-opening things.
Uh, I’m coming into my lesson and he’s got this big stack of papers. I was like, bill, what are those? He’s like, oh, I just had this lesson with [00:18:00] Bobby Shu and we went through all of this you know, all of his breathing techniques and things like that. I wanna show you some stuff. And, you know, here I am i’s funny.
I thought Bill was old then, but you know, it’s all relative. Sorry, bill. I didn’t think you were that old, but, you know, I was like, what, what is this professional trumpet player doing? Taking lessons? Like, doesn’t he not know how to breathe? You know, and things like that. And then like that start opened my eyes, like, he’s just grabbing, he’s still learning.
He’s still grabbing. What are these people doing that you know, even though they’re playing in sections together or recording together. Uh, so I learned the shoe wedge breath that week and started applying that. Just amazing things to kind of open up my eyes to different directions and styles and thoughts of playing.
Thanks to Bill just fortuitously, he hosted, uh, Timothy Dozer on a rare visit to the us. This was I believe, I don’t know if the USSR was still around, that might have fallen, but it was still very difficult for folks from Russia to, um, to come out, especially to work. And he hosted Timothy Doucher for a [00:19:00] masterclass.
And I remember, um, he got my dad and I in on a joint lesson, even though they were completely booked ’cause he was the host. So I got, even though I didn’t understand a thing, and it was really early on in my plane, I still have Timothy’s sound, you know, demonstrating in my mind. Uh, and I’ve never heard anything like it since.
So kind of things like that. Bill was just really great at exposing me to so many different ideas. So I started with him and then towards the end and another thing, credit to Bill, he knew when it was time, you know, there was a point where he said, I don’t, you know, you’re not getting it, John.
He didn’t say it like that, but he, he, he knew I, he, there, there was not a connection there in terms of either the, my motivation or my lack of just going all in with him. And I know he, he took that personally. and maybe the dynamic with him and my, him and my dad are great friends and colleagues and, you know, I’m my dad’s child and he wants to make sure I’m going on into great things.
[00:20:00] And, so he handed me off to Bob, Karen, uh, it was another great player out here and a teacher. and Bob kind of took the reigns, you know, I think studying with Bill for, I think about three years. Like the stamp stuff really didn’t click with me. I think, I have some reasons, uh, theories of, of why now, many years later.
Bob, Karen took more of like a, he studied with Arnold Jacobs started to study with Ano and Julliard, and also a podcast guest on here so you can hear his story. So he, he, we did more of like Chicago school stuff, uh, the wind and song stuff. a lot of French like Paris Conservatory stuff.
Uh, he introduced me to the, a lot of the French Etudes and, boats on broad and, you know, those kinds of sounds and different harmonics and things like, started getting me interested, um, different ways of view using your wind. And he really got me going, thankfully into college in about, probably about six [00:21:00] or eight months.
Really got my plane going to a level. well, I feel like it should have been considering my age.
VINNIE C: Let me interrupt John real quick. The, it’s fascinating. I think it would help some people especially anybody that’s struggling with getting the, the Jimmy Stamp stuff, locked in. Can you briefly go over the reasons why you think maybe it wasn’t working for you at the time?
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, well, it made me tight. The buzzing made me tight and, I think it’s be, and I mean, I know it’s ’cause I was doing it wrong, because there’s obviously plenty of examples of Jimmy Stamp students out there, bill being one of ’em, Malcolm McNabb et cetera. Roy Poper, just off the top of my head.
VINNIE C: Nobody. Nobody aint any good. Really,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. So, I mean, obviously it’s me, not the method. Um, but no I, I, I was doing it. I was, I mean, I was a tense individual anyway, and the. I had to manipulate to make the buzz work and that manipulation maybe even tighter. And then [00:22:00] funny enough, once I get, got rid of the rest of my tension thanks to years of therapy you know, like, again, again, in my head straight, I realized, okay, well why I don’t have to have all this tension to buzz.
and Roy Poper also kind of unlocked this with me. He said, I, I, he does, goes for a fuzzy buzz, what he calls a fuzzy buzz. And it’s, and he thinks an octave lower than the note he’s actually buzzing. And I started doing that, not that I’m a diehard buzzer anymore or really went into that. I started for about a year.
I did stamp exercises much later in my life with that concept. It clicked. I was like, oh, I am finding the center. Oh, I’m not starting the trumpet with a pinch sound and all this tension and already tired because I’m trying to manipulate the mouthpiece to sound, et cetera, et cetera. so again, my thick skull was the issue.
’cause I know Bill Bing and even laid Bob, Karen and my later teachers tried everything they could under the sun. Um,
VINNIE C: John, it’s a [00:23:00] trumpet podcast, right? So the whole wackadoodle mindset and tension and all that stuff, it’s kind of, you don’t even have to speak about it ’cause everybody
JOHN SNELL: We’ve all been there. Yeah.
VINNIE C: yeah, playing with your shoulders as earmuffs, uh, never pays off. And that’s the first thing that happens. If you run into, if you’re going down the road and you see a lick coming up and you’re like, oh, what in the world?
First thing that happens is you get tensed up and you get jammed up. And so that’s that’s not at all uncommon. Who who was next in the the lineage of teaching?
JOHN SNELL: Yeah, so I mean, I went through high school and funny enough, I started gigging thanks to a little nepotism. So like, I was working quite a bit, probably my junior, senior year in high school. I mean, it started off with my dad having me sit in third, uh, third trumpet in Nebraska, quintet, you know, kind of shadowing, for mall gigs and Christmas gigs and things like that.
He used to do some larger brass ensemble stuff, uh, lighting of Christmas trees and recitals and things, [00:24:00] and he would throw me down on eighth trumpet. And I actually start getting paid for it. And then when I, you know, well, you’re junior, and my allowance was probably $3 a week, and then you’re making $150 for an hour’s worth of work playing your instrument.
I was like, wow, what is this? Yeah. And then I, my first Easter gig, I made several hundred dollars to play hymns. I was like, what is this? Um. Now I’m taking all of my friends at high school. Some of them had minimum wage jobs, but a lot of ’em didn’t work. And it’s like, Hey, we’re all going to fud, rucks burgers are on me.
You know,
VINNIE C: buddy.
JOHN SNELL: uh, It was like, so I, I really got that bug thanks to my dad trusting me and getting me on some of that stuff. Um, And, and I started then networking and people started calling me that weren’t my dad which was great. so that was already in motion late in high school. And then when the time came to go to college, and I love this story, I really, I didn’t wanna leave town.
Um. I thought about [00:25:00] USC, uh, I think I actually applied there, but it was really came down to Cal State Northridge where my dad went and Cal State Long Beach where my dad didn’t go. And then Bill Bing was the teacher at Northridge who I had already studied with. and I wouldn’t have minded studying with him again.
And then there was Charlie Davis down at Cal State Long Beach, and I didn’t really know a lot about, Charlie certainly knew nothing about the Adam stuff. That was all completely foreign to me. I just knew he was a commercial player. He was a lead player. Uh, and I was like, well, that’s kind of the direction I want to go.
My, uh, high school band director, uh, one of them Tom Whaley introduced me to. Well, he introduced me to all kinds of things. He, he gave me my first Maynard Ferguson album when I was a freshman. I had no idea who Maynard Ferguson was, you know? And some teen teenagers, you know, they, they revolt and they do their thing by, you know, hanging out on the corner and doing drugs or, you know, my revolting teenager years was listening to Maynard [00:26:00] Ferguson and then Bill Chase, and
VINNIE C: oh yeah.
JOHN SNELL: and he introduced me to like Stevie Wonder and Horn section stuff.
Uh, and David Sanborn. And we actually had a rock ensemble in high school and started playing Chicago. Uh, I mean, does anyone really know what time it is? And he hands me the solo. I was like, what is this music? What is this stuff? and then Jerry Hay, he started, he introduced me to Sea Wind Horns and. You know, Gary Grant and Jerry Hay and those guys, and I was like this is this. There’s something here. This is, I enjoy doing this more than playing the Hayden. So I made the decision school that my dad graduated from, or Cal State Long Beach with Charlie Davis, who can hopefully help me in the commercial world.
And I signed up, I registered, I got all my classes, and uh, you know, I was like, I’m doing my own thing. I’m gonna be my own person. Right? And that summer, after I had already registered and committed, they hired my dad as the brass professor.[00:27:00]
VINNIE C: Oh no.
JOHN SNELL: Hey John, guess what? I’m gonna be teaching brass pedagogy and I’m gonna be teaching the trumpet car choir and I’m gonna be running the brass ensemble. You know,
VINNIE C: I’m, and now you’re five years old again, and you’re like, oh no.
JOHN SNELL: yeah. And well, and, but there’s even more. There’s even more because when they hired him as adjunct faculty, they said, you know, even part-time professors get free tuition.
So if you want to get your masters at the same time you’re teaching here, you can too.
VINNIE C: Oh my gosh.
JOHN SNELL: I am coming as a freshman, you know, just turned 18. I’m an adult. I’m on my own going to the school that my dad had no affiliation with, and he’s a professor on two of my classes, in two of my classes. And, you know, I’m down, hanging out with my friends in the practice room and he’s walking by with his at attache [00:28:00] case.
You know, it’s like what? Rodney Dangerfield’s back to school, you know?
VINNIE C: Oh my God. John, this explains so much, man. This is the kind of stuff that people want to hear. That is amazing. Did you, how did you navigate that? I guess this, yeah.
JOHN SNELL: You know, I make things worse than there. I mean, we have a deep respect and love for each other
VINNIE C: Oh, I can tell. Everybody can tell that. No, you’re, I know. You’re just, yeah.
JOHN SNELL: And we it worked like and my dad respected my space. and he was very tough on me on the classes I took with him. And rightfully so. I needed a, you know, a good kick in the behind sometimes.
cause he, he held everyone at that school and, and in any of his classes he taught either there, he’s taught a couple other prof schools as well, including Northridge. he held everyone to a higher standard than I think a lot of college folks, especially college folks at a commuter school or a state school.
You know, they, uh, he ran his brass ensemble at the university. Like he ran his [00:29:00] professional ensemble with
VINNIE C: well, I mean, you have, four years to go from being in an 18-year-old hotshot to, you know, when you’re 21 or 22 to sitting next to your dad on a session or sitting next to him on a gig, like not one that he hires you for. And so, you know, I, I’ve always believed that that’s the way to go. You gotta, you can’t baby ’em because they’re gonna get out on the gig.
And if they’re sitting in a. Prototypical trumpet section. There’s gonna be some nice people and there’s gonna be some people that may not be as nice about their critique. And you know, if you don’t play that quarter note on four short, I’m gonna take you out on the break and teach you a lesson.
You know, that kind of stuff. So, man, that was, that was a good, that was a great training round. Uh, like, Hey John, I want you to stay after class. Yes sir. And you stay after class. And he goes, Hey, you wanna go to Burger King and have some lunch? I can see that. I can totally see that. I don’t wanna show favoritism, but I’ll buy today.
So.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. But it, you know, it was great. And you [00:30:00] know, uh, it, we had a lot of great times down there together. a lot of my friends down there are still close friends with my dad. you know, they built that bond with him. And a lot of them, even the ones that kind of resisted his. Standard setting at the time, have written or called me or called my dad and thanked him.
’cause now in their later mature years, they realized how the life lessons they learned from him set them up, uh, later on. Uh, so it was, and it was, it, I’ll admit it was cool having him around,
VINNIE C: Yeah. Good for you, man.
JOHN SNELL: and so he was there. And then Charlie oh my gosh. You know, I can’t say enough about Charlie.
Um. We had so many great lessons. I mean, I remember my first lesson sitting in his, I, I was fortunate. So I lived maybe 10 minutes from Charlie and both of us commuted down to Long Beach, maybe an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, depending on traffic. And Charlie at the time had, I dunno, 13 or 14 [00:31:00] students, he was still really busy in the studios and touring and stuff with Lionel Hampton and whoever, you know, Seth McFarland and a million other people.
Um, so he, he only went down to Long Beach one day and it was a 13 hour day. And early on in our lessons, when I told him I lived in Burbank right across the, you know, 10 minutes away, he said, well, why don’t you just come over to my house? Which was great because. there’s stories of when someone, one of us wouldn’t practice.
You know, lesson number seven was a terrible lesson. And then one of my buddies would come in as lesson number eight, and Charlie would just be,
VINNIE C: Oh yeah.
JOHN SNELL: you know, so I never had that experience. And Charlie was always relaxed at home, but it also meant we could stretch out. He wasn’t, he didn’t have someone coming in after me.
Uh, so a lot of times our lessons would go till 10 30, 11 at night. And I would need it. he would really work on me on my tension and my sound production. and just developing a foundation through the Adam [00:32:00] routine of listening, really visualizing the sound you want to get. And it was the seeds of also believing in yourself, you know, which is huge in the Adam world.
I mean, it’s huge everywhere, but
VINNIE C: But that’s a big, that’s a big Mr. Adam thing. And I never took a lesson with him, but I’m gleaning from all the people, uh, that, that studied with him and then studied with first generation. I took a lesson with Carl, I hang out with, with Kyle a bunch and they’re just as much about you know, being a good human being as they are about, but it’s all about the sound and capturing that sound that’s in your head that Charlie, I can’t imagine sitting next to Charlie and having him play and then trying to match that because his sound is as big as a truck
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
VINNIE C: Woo
JOHN SNELL: It’s it, I mean, fortunately we have several recordings to of, with examples of that sound, but it doesn’t quite capture the sound in the room, you know? And, and actually that did run me into [00:33:00] trouble because I was trying to compete with him when we were trading off, you know?
And again, I wasn’t listening to what he was telling me. I was just reacting and saying, well, that’s the sound I want. And then I assumed to get that sound, you had to work hard
you know? And that’s, I didn’t make that distinction until later where I realized, no it looks like he’s working hard, maybe.
And even more so it sounds like, oh, in order to get that volume in that range, that’s gotta just be like lifting 5,000 pounds. It’s not. And it’s not. it, it, but I definitely did make inroads in terms of my endurance and my sound production, that I use today. I mean, it’s, it was an amazing time with Charlie.
I and, oh God, we had some, I remember coming in end of the day, I’ve got beat up by rehearsals. I’m in a, I’m a head case. I’d show up and we’d start just bull buzzing the lead pipe and maybe getting through the first long tones. And then I had, [00:34:00] Charlie would look at me and kind of, what You okay John?
VINNIE C: Oh
JOHN SNELL: like, I’m like, I’m trying.
Charlie’s like. You want some ribs,
VINNIE C: Nice.
JOHN SNELL: so I mean, like a number of our lessons would be, look, John, you’re a mess. Like playing the trumpet another hour is not gonna do you anything. You need to go have a beer and eat some ribs. And we drive over to a place, local place and have dinner, you know, and we just talk, talk about music or life or dogs or whatever.
So he, he was really intuitive in terms of what I needed. and, but I’m still tough, you know,
He didn’t sugarcoat anything. And just like my dad, thankfully I was used to that, you know, he held everyone to a standard of, you know, he knew what someone’s potential was and he knew the potential in the person was more than what they thought.
So, um, really tried to pull everything out.
VINNIE C: you know, having a limited amount of experience with Charlie. [00:35:00] I love the fact that first of all he can play, he can still play, you know, um, and he’s just very direct.
He picked up one of my horns, uh, at the Adam Fest before you aligned it and said, you’re having a push up to this and this and that and the other thing, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, played it afterwards and he said, that’s fixed. Nevermind. So, good job. Um, so, so you graduated from college.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah, I did make a detour. Which I mean, not to just go through my whole
VINNIE C: that’s why we’re here.
JOHN SNELL: who’s the film com film guy that does the documentaries. Ken Burns, the Ken Burns version and then in 1993. But no, and this is really like a very, a big turning point in my life, for several reasons.
I, I, I was done with Long Beach. I love Charlie. I loved a lot of my colleagues there, some of my professors, but I just, I, something in me is like, I, I need a change. and it was the best decision of my life. Uh, it was a very last minute decision. I think it was like the first day of winter [00:36:00] break in between semesters.
I just said, I need to transfer. I. I don’t, wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. Uh, because once I actually started the transfer process, I realized I hadn’t taken any GE classes. I had really only taken music classes and I needed certain English or some, you know, a few things to actually transfer, otherwise I have to start over again.
everything happens for a reason. Uh, so I, I was like, okay, you know what? I’m gonna take a semester off. I worked part-time at a computer place. I could put in some more hours, save up some more money. I could finally practice as much as I want without having to play wind ensemble and university and quintet and all of these groups that, I mean, they were doing good for me, but also taking up a lot of time when I really wanted to focus on myself.
and also gig more. I was playing in bands. I was I was performing regularly. Now,
VINNIE C: More on the commercial side
JOHN SNELL: Uh, Yeah, I mean, I was still doing, look, I mean, there’s no gig too far or pays too little. So I, because of my connections with my dad, I was still doing a lot of church and quintet [00:37:00] stuff. Um, some kind of, you know, some chamber orchestra, community orchestra kind of things.
you know, messiahs and, you know, kind of the generic freelance classical trumpet stuff. Um, nothing to write home about but works work. Uh, but I was, I was starting to play in a few bands, soloing, funk bands, corporate bands Latin bands, everything. So that was starting to pile up. And uh, so I was like, man, semester off, earn some money, work on myself.
Charlie had nothing. To do with that. He, he wanted nothing of that. He is like, no. What I told Charlie, my grand plan and part of that was to keep taking lessons from Charlie, like keeping that continuity. He’s like, no, you’re gonna ruin your chops. You need to keep playing. I was like, what are you, I mean, I was like, I whatcha talking about Charlie.
He’s like, no, you, you, you know what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna go out to Citrus College. We’re gonna get you in the, in the, the a band get in the jazz band out there. I was sitting in his studio when I was telling him this and I was like, what? I was like, is a community college? No, no, no. I’m not gonna take a jazz band [00:38:00] class at a community college.
Like, what are you doing, Charlie? While I’m sitting there, he calls up Bob Slack, another
VINNIE C: Oh yeah, there you go.
JOHN SNELL: who’s, who taught out at Citrus College, which was a community college out here. And in 15 minutes on the phone call Charlie said, I have a kid from Long Beach, he’s transferring. He needs a semester. can you put him in your a band and get him lessons?
And Bob said, yes, have him meet me at my office at Citrus tomorrow morning at eight. Like that. I was like, this deer. And I saw all my grand plans just kind of going and well, kind of had knew about Citrus College, but not really until I went there. But there for a community college, jazz band two year program, they had, I would say a.
Better than most professional jazz band group. I mean, these are all 18 and 19 year olds. A couple kids hung around a little bit later ’cause they enjoyed it or wanted lessons, et cetera. But I mean, basically 18 to 21, 22 years old, I mean, they were, they backed [00:39:00] Arturo Sandoval at a concert. You know, they got told not to come back to jazz festivals because there was no competition.
And the judges hadn’t heard bands that good and swore they were paid ringers, you know,
VINNIE C: That’s awesome.
JOHN SNELL: like, no. So they stopped doing competition. It was an incredible experience that I could do a whole podcast about. but I basically, for one semester I got double-teamed. I got lessons with Bob Slack every week.
I got lessons with Charlie every week I was in the combo with Tom Hines, the great guitar player, which really took my jazz plane to different directions. And then here, I mean, this is the power of that kind of, William Adam.
You know, connection. The, I mean, their, A band is like, like getting into one o’clock, right?
Like there’s 50 trumpet players that want to get into the Citrus College, a band, and they have four seats. Well, with one phone call now there’s a fifth seat
VINNIE C: Wow.
JOHN SNELL: for me, you know, and I walk in the first day, these guys are [00:40:00] like, who the heck he? Why are you, what are you doing down there on fifth? Who is this person?
You know? And it was already like two weeks into their semester. But they, I mean, the whole band took me under their wing, the trumpet section. Like, I mean, ’cause it’s Adam, guys we’re like, well, we’re firing it up tomorrow at 6:00 AM Come on in, you know? and sectionals, we did, uh, it was like the hardest working.
Trumpet section the, and most inspirational trumpet section I’ve ever worked with. So it, it was amazing experience. We, within that one semester, we did a Japan tour. We did, we were the house band at the Hyatt Regency in Maui for two weeks, two and a half
VINNIE C: Oh my gosh.
JOHN SNELL: And uh, we recorded a, it was the in Ellington Duke Ellington centennial year, and we recorded, they also have a full professional sound stage that Bob Slack built from the ground up at a community college with professional engineers.
We recorded Duke Ellington [00:41:00] celebration album for his centennial using all the original charts that kind of spanned from early in his career to later that won a downbeat award. It was the best semester of my, of college thanks to Charlie’s phone call and that connection with Bob Slack.
And obviously, I mean, it’s, it’s, I look back at it, it’s like, well, that was it. You know, I peaked, I tours, recording the camaraderie, uh, and, and just getting my, my ass kicked every single day in one form or the other, either by teachers or by colleagues, you know, to raise my standards.
VINNIE C: And that’s prototypical Charlie. You know, just like, here’s what’s gonna happen, kid,
JOHN SNELL: Mm-hmm.
VINNIE C: and, and makes it happen. That’s,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
VINNIE C: that’s amazing.
JOHN SNELL: and the Adam Network, you know, and I know Wing and Seavers, and Baca and Harbaugh, all those, all of those guys Chris Bode’s told a story about, you know, bill Adams said, well, you gotta call Jerry Hay if you wanna do this. Call Jerry Hay, learn about microphones. You know, things like that.
I mean, that’s that comradery and yeah, [00:42:00] it changed my life and the principles, the work ethic, the leadership stuff that I learned from Bob Slack, being above all of the trumpet plane stuff is I still use every day today at the shop. You know,
VINNIE C: His playing. His playing is beyond reproach. I mean, good. All those
JOHN SNELL: I’ll, I’ll, yeah. Yeah. You can’t say enough
VINNIE C: Oh, it’s amazing. Wow.
JOHN SNELL: that was that I, that, that was a nice interlude. And then long story short, as I ended up going back to Northridge to graduate, and again, going back to the best decision I ever made, I had that Citrus college experience, went to Northridge, met my wife there, my future wife there.
So again, who knows how these things happen. And it would kind of like my teaching kind of thing went full circle because I wanted to study from Bill again as a slightly more mature.
VINNIE C: Less, less uptight.
JOHN SNELL: Less uptight you know, and, uh, uh, a student. And so, and Bill was amazing. You know, he took me right, right back in.
Fortunately my [00:43:00] chops were in a better shape through my other experiences. And, uh, so he still worked on me. We did a little bit of buzzing, but he took me through other exercises and things to work on, other aspects of my plane transposition, and then music, like we really spent, ’cause I was getting ready for my senior recital.
We really got into music and phrasing and orchestral excerpts and things like that, even though I did, had no aspirations to do that sort of stuff. It was great. And then he still had me transcribed solos things you know, so I finished up with Bill and it was a great kind of cap to come full circle and take a lot more of his wisdom that I didn’t get the first
VINNIE C: That’s fantastic. Do you think, your wife is awesome. So are your kids. And everybody that works at the shop that I’ve met, man, is just, it’s all kind of the same. They’re all just really sweet, caring, kind people that, that love, you know, could stand around talking about trumpet geekary [00:44:00] forever.
But when I met her, I got the distinct impression that she she’s a grounding place for you. Yes. Do you think she helped you kind of chill a little bit and tell me about that a little bit.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Oh. No doubt. I mean, I couldn’t imagine where I would be without my wife Yeah. I mean, she puts up with me every day uh, I mean, uh, uh, I couldn’t ask her a better mother, wife, uh, mother and my children, wife, friends, workout buddy. I mean, she’s literally dragged me through marathons, you know?
Um, So I mean, if she can, if she can drag me through a marathon, we can get through anything,
VINNIE C: Heck yeah, man. Before I, I’m keenly interested in your your working at the shop and of course knowing and working with Bob for so long how that affected your life, how that affected your trumpet playing. But I wanted to talk to you a little bit about and I think this is really important ’cause, you know, when you meet a person, you get a sense of them and it feels like you’re tr you’re really trying to take care of the infrastructure.
You mentioned [00:45:00] working out with your wife and a god running a marathon. Geez, my knees hurt just thinking about it.
JOHN SNELL: Uh, running, running might be a little overstatement shuffling. Uh, I don’t say I, yeah. I need to be careful. That’s the lawyer in me, like, be careful with my words. I didn’t run a marathon. I finished a marathon
VINNIE C: But you went and you trained and you made it. 26 point, whatever the it
JOHN SNELL: There was some running involved.
VINNIE C: All right. Okay. So then and you just mentioned it and I, learned this about you in, one of our conversations. It might’ve been the podcast, it might’ve been when you came out and saw us with the band. But you went back okay, so you graduate from college. Tell me what happens then, including your foray back into a giant accomplishment.
JOHN SNELL: well, I graduated from Cal State Northridge and I had my performance degree, and I started knocking on doors and said, Hey, I have this performance degree. hire me for a higher paying job um, than what I’m already getting paid. It didn’t work
VINNIE C: It’s [00:46:00] weird. Weird how that.
JOHN SNELL: how that happened.
I did FI did finish that degree, even though it took me seven and a half years. I was in no rush. but I’m glad I did because without that piece of paper, I couldn’t have done what I did later in my life going on to graduate school. But, I was always working a lot. I was teaching private lessons.
I was coaching at high schools and middle schools, you know, kind of the typical freelancer stuff. You know, and I, there was a point where I was, the bands I was playing with, my dream was to always. Have a band hit it big, you know? And I, I was with a few folks at Long Beach that either had been in bands that hit it big, you know, in the ska swing era of the nineties.
You know, no doubt a lot of the sc, especially Long Beach, is close to orange County. So there was a lot of my colleagues there that played with No Doubt, or Ozo Motley and Real Big Fish and some of the big bands. And it’s like, man, how fun would it be to tour around the world, kind of as a rock star, as a horn player, making good money.
And going to, Northridge, we had the Big Bad Voodoo [00:47:00] Daddy guys came out of Northridge um, one of the Real Big Fish, John Christensen. so I was like, one of my bands, you know, I had a lot of fuelers out there in different bands that I was playing in and, you know, playing for record labels at clubs on the strip, the Sunset Strip and things.
And, none of that panned out unfortunately. Or fortunately, you know, because now that I know guys on the road and the grueling stuff that it is, it’s like. Yeah, it’s not for everybody. And I, at that point in my life, it, I might’ve been too old and tied down, so to speak. But I was playing a lot. I mean, I was playing seven nights a week teaching, uh, rehearsals.
You know, I had an, uh, Northridge brass quintet that I had founded that was pretty active. and then I, we were playing, some of the bands would play in San Francisco or Vegas or San Diego. So, I was just like always on the road or going somewhere. But I remember one day and I still had a computer job.
Uh, still had a day job at this point. And I remember one, I worked till five o’clock in Burbank, here in la, [00:48:00] you know, had all my clothes and my horns and stuff with me. Picked up a, you know, our keyboard player in North Hollywood. Drove to San Francisco, going 80 miles an hour to get to a 10 30, you know, sound check, you know.
And then we hit at 1130. Play till 1230, opening up for a funk band. They hit at one. You know, till two we hang out and then three o’clock at night we turn around and drive back and we get back to LA at eight or nine in the morning, you know, then I, and then I show up to work, you
VINNIE C: brutal.
JOHN SNELL: um, know, so things like that.
It’s like, I loved it. I loved it. It was great. I’m glad for that time in my life. but it, it reached a point where I was like, on a gig, and I was just like, like, what am I doing? You know, like I’m counted up the number of hours that I was practicing and driving and teaching and playing and my pay.
Like each, I’d look at my, tax filing. It’s like, man, I made less money this year. Than I did the year before. [00:49:00] know, I’m still gigging a lot. I’m still working a lot. And I, there was a couple realizations, and I was also, I was playing in some cover bands and some of the cover bands I was playing in.
They’re like some of the really happy players in there. They really enjoyed playing. They sounded amazing. They drove nice cars. They were treating people out to dinner. They weren’t musicians, like, they were weekend warriors as we would call them, you know? And I was like, and then the other guys, like, and me, myself, the other, the other players included, were like, oh God, you know, like, when is this gonna be over?
I have the call tomorrow morning and, you know, grumpy. I tried to always be as positive as possible, but I even got dark, you know?
VINNIE C: Hard be. Hard to believe. Hard to imagine. But I yeah, I can
JOHN SNELL: I, and some of the players that were playing with me were doing the gigs. You know, I’m on an upward trajectory hopefully, and. Some of the players that were two or three times my age were doing the gigs with me.
I was like, wait, you recorded the [00:50:00] music that we’re covering, you know, what’s I, what’s the old comedian? Like, I don’t want to be a member of a club. That would include me kind thing. Like, I was like, I, like I don’t see myself in 40 years sitting next to me, you know, making 75 bucks at a bowling alley.
You know, and some people love that. I mean, I’m not judging, but that, like, in my own life, I was like, if I’m gonna have a wife and kids and the quality of life I wanted, like, I don’t want to be playing for 75 bucks ’cause I have to, ’cause I need the 75 bucks, you know? And fortunately like it got to the point where I, like, I resented playing.
Like, it was like I got the trumpet out and it didn’t bring me joy. And I had a conversation with my wife and I was like. I’ve had this crazy thing since I was really young. I’ve always wanted to go to law school, I said, if I add up the hours that I work and play and all of that stuff, I would be like the number one associate.
I would probably make partner and four years instead of [00:51:00] seven. You know, considering that like, you know, you need 2200 billable hours to be top of the, like, I did the math. I was like I could have done 3000 billable hours like this. It’ll be a, not a piece of cake, but it’ll be a step back if I go to law school and actually work as an attorney.
Oh, and by way my starting salary would be $225,000 plus benefits, plus retirement, plus a tech stipend, et cetera. So I went all in. I, uh, and I was working at the shop at the time. I had quit my computer gig and worked at the shop, which I love doing. they were really supportive of my professional career.
They let me practice here if I got called for a gig or whatever, you know, Bob and Ko and the shop were really flexible. But it, you know, it just, to me, it was kind of a dead end job. Like I did what I did, but Bob was, Bob and Ko was the manager here, and it was never gonna be able to pay enough to make ends meet with everything else I was doing.
so I, uh, yeah, I, I put myself on like a year and a half plan to study for the lsat, the entrance exam here in the US for law [00:52:00] school, and started applying for law schools.
VINNIE C: You, how’d you do on the Ls? A
JOHN SNELL: I did Okay. I did okay. I, I mean, I did pretty good. Um, I tell my kids this, I tell my students this, like, if you can learn to play an instrument.
And play in, in a group and develop the discipline and the skills and the pattern of learning. You transfer that to anything else in the world
VINNIE C: Exactly the same.
JOHN SNELL: it’s a piece of cake.
VINNIE C: I couldn’t agree. I mean a thousand percent, man. It’s the exact same discipline if, somebody’s struggling with their weight or working out or relationship stuff. I mean, it’s everything, man. ’cause if you can sit, you know, I’ve already played for an hour and a half today. I’m gonna wind up with the session.
I’ll play six hours if you can sit and do anything for six hours. You can accomplish everything. I mean, it’s, it’s amazing. And that’s, super
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. So, it took me, I mean, the, I forget the, it was about six months of LSAT prep. but I took it, like, I took my practicing. [00:53:00] I basically replaced my practicing. I took fewer gigs. I, I still kept my students, one to kind of keep my playing, but also I didn’t wanna just drop them. And some of ’em were going into state or L state and going on to college, et cetera.
So I, but I transitioned a little bit out of the gigging. I was saying no to more stuff, but primarily it was like, I wasn’t really worried about my practicing. So I replaced my practice time with LSAT study time, and I was religious about it. And I mean, I probably took a hundred practice tests, you know, and by the time I got to the lsat, I still had a panic to attack.
I still, it was still one of the hardest things I ever did have done. But it prepared me. And the, the funny thing is when I was sitting there during that test and, um. I had my panic attack. I was like, this is no different than screwing up in a on stage. What am I gonna do? You
VINNIE C: Yeah. Cat’s outta the bag at that point. Just calm down and move forward.
JOHN SNELL: So I just I, I sat my pencil down, I did some deep breathing and I still got a score that got me into, [00:54:00] a great school.
VINNIE C: How long were you in school?
JOHN SNELL: so 2008. So, so law school’s a three year process. I got into USC, downtown, university of Southern California. In And I mean, it was an amazing experience. I don’t wish it on anyone else unless you really wanna torture yourself.
and I, I didn’t listen to a, I didn’t know very many attorneys, no one in the family, but I, every attorney I knew I talked to and they said, you’re nuts. Don’t do it. You’re gonna hate it. do anything else other than. Law and I and, but then I said, well, why are you doing it? Well, I found an area of the law that I loved.
Well, would you give it up for anything else? No. Okay. Well, now I had some context. Okay. Well, law school’s gonna be hard. It’s difficult, and I’m gonna have to pay my dues until I find an area of a law that, that I loved. And that was my plan. Everything happens for a reason. I got into law school.
I, you know, I, everyone was eight years younger than me. Laptops were a thing now, I like
VINNIE C: were super heavy. They were really
JOHN SNELL: apparently. Well, yeah. [00:55:00] Well, in the eight years between graduating, you know, you know, not that we needed laptops really to do music theory, but, you know, I, there was always one guy, I think in one of my GE classes that had a laptop and that was the only one I saw going through my undergrad.
And now I go show up and, you know, it’s a hundred people all typing much faster than I could type taking notes. Yeah. But I, I was like, I loved it. I love my professors. It’s, uh, the great thing about USC, it’s a small class. I mean, it’s two, it’s a class of 200 for the whole, you know, it’s, so you get to know everyone.
not that the classes are 200 in there, but you know, we’re at all in our classes, but you get to know the whole, your whole level L one level or one L two L as you’re going through the years. And so I was in the middle of my second, second year and Bob Reeves called me and, uh, I, I, I quit, you know, I gave my resignation, quit, uh, right before law school.
And Bob called me one night, said, Hey, John, you know, there’s something wrong with the website, you know, [00:56:00] could you take a look at it? This is like out of the blue. I, I had been in touch with Bob through the years. He gave me some, uh, albums or like he was clearing something out of his house. He’d give it to me.
So we’d still keep in touch. And, and I did the website for the shop. So I was like, okay, this makes sense. I’ll take a look at it. Take me 15 minutes because the price was wrong or something. And then that was kinda like the first peel of, you know, the skin of the onion. As I started peeling back, you know, like I realized.
That the situation at the shop was really dire. You know, I had left, a lot of other people had left. Bob didn’t really have the best person working here at the time. He wasn’t a trumpet player. He wasn’t anyone who had worked here before. He had kind of come outta corporate America, didn’t want people to pick up the phone, didn’t want people to answer emails.
We just. You know, and Bob was of the age where he didn’t really have the ability to do that, considering also that his wife was also very ill. Anyway, I was like, Bob, things are pretty bad. He’s like, yeah, you know, would you be able to come back kind of [00:57:00] part-time? And I was like, Bob, I’m in law school.
You know, I already have, uh, let’s see, a hundred thousand dollars in debt and I’m only halfway through. You know, I have to read 10,000 pages a week, basically. And Right. You know, like, and you want me to run a business. That’s, you know, I think UPS had already stopped picking up, ’cause we were so far behind in Bills.
I think at and t was a week away from shutting off the phones. But then I was like, I mean, I can’t, I don’t know, like, I didn’t feel like I. Owed Bob anything. But I was developed a close relationship with Bob during the years I worked here. And just knowing the institution that he and the shop were to the brass community, I was like, I can’t see this happen.
And I also started realizing what all of those people were trying to tell me before I went to law school. It’s like, as much as I loved studying the law, as much as I loved the rigors of, and the theoretical stuff and the hypotheticals and stuff, I like, I really didn’t want to do what I wanted to go into corporate law, mergers and [00:58:00] acquisi acquisitions and, and things like that.
International tax. And those really, you know, interested me. And then I met the people that did them and I was like. And that, and also, no offense to the International tax attorneys out there, Murray Gordon is one of ’em, and he’s fabulous. And he’s the exception. He’s a fabulous trumpet player as well.
But you know, for the most part, they looked dead inside. They never saw their families. the, the money was great, but then the pedantic torturous work you had to do to get to the level where you were flying around and advising companies, it’s like, no, no, it’s not worth it.
So, uh, yeah, Bob made me an offer. He said, look, if you come back and work, and run things, you can run things the way you want. You know, I just want to be Bob, you know, I wanna help customers and whip stuff out on the lathe, and you run the business. And, uh, I had a difficult conversation with my wife.
No, on my part, not her part, because I said, Susie, this is the, I mean, I have a choice here. Like I can go back and run my own business but it [00:59:00] means like, I’m not gonna make, I’m gonna make $15 an hour. Not, uh, $225,000 a year. she said, thank God you can, we had, our first kid was on the way.
She’s like, you can be around, for the birth of our first kid, we can go to baseball games, we can travel. She’s like, as long as you can pay for your student loans,
VINNIE C: that’s the perfect answer,
JOHN SNELL: Right, right.
VINNIE C: do not screw that up, brother. She is the best that ever happened to you.
JOHN SNELL: And so that was, it was I, and the only caveat was then like. I’m already halfway through this. I want to just like the seven and a half years with my undergrad, it’s like I want to get the piece of paper. It’s a very valuable piece of paper because if I ever do need to work as a lawyer or want to, you know, I, it does mean something.
So I did, I did finish my three years at school. I did pass the bar, California State bar first time, thank God. and I pay my bar dues every year just in case. And thankfully [01:00:00] I’ve never, I mean, I’ve, I’ve needed the degree a few times. and it comes in handy, but it also, um, thankfully I’ve never had to, really work as an attorney. I, I did some estate planning, some wills and trust stuff COVID as a side gig, just as a, Hey man, I don’t know what the world’s gonna look like. I don’t know if we’re gonna have musicians, you know, post COVID. And also I, by working as an attorney for a few years, I was able to take my burden off of the shop to help us get through that time.
So that, that, that came in handy there. But, yeah, I, it’s still there in the back pocket, just in case. But, uh, I’m really thankful for the experience, really thankful for Bob. Because I, I realized when you’re an attorney and you’re advising corporations, you’re still the advisor. know, you’re not the one, if you’re the entrepreneur, if you’re the CEO, you’re the one in the hot seat.
You’re the one making the calls. And that to me is much more fulfilling than. Hey, this is what you probably should do. These are the implications, you [01:01:00] know, and I got a better training than what you could get going for an MBA, because Bob gave me the reins 15 years ago,
you and I knew nothing about business,
VINNIE C: yeah,
JOHN SNELL: and I had to learn, you know, and what better way to learn than to just steering a 50-year-old brand,
VINNIE C: you had to learn quick so you could pay at and t and get FedEx to start coming back to the door. ’cause that’s a, that was a big, that’s a big challenge. And I would imagine that the degree, the law degree helped you, especially with the transition after Bob passed with the company and making sure all the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed and all that good stuff.
So you completely understood whatever they put in front of you and were able tweak it and make sure that it was, make sure that it was correct.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. the law degree was priceless in that I knew. When I needed an attorney, you know, I knew what to look for. I knew the kind of the red flags to look for. Fortunately Bob, since the early days, had a close friend that was a, [01:02:00] intellectual property attorney, Don McIntosh.
Um, So, you know, that’s why we have patents. You know, the, they’ve all run their course now, but we have a sleeve patent. Bob has the, the valve alignment patent back in the seventies, you know, our trademarks and things like that. So we’ve, we’ve been well pro protected in that regard for decades.
Where Bob wasn’t protected is he was a sole proprietor for all those years, and so someone wanted to sue him and take his house, uh, because they. Cut their lip or something on a mouthpiece or something like, that and then the legacy plan. So first thing when I came back was Bob Incorporated for the first time and was an actual legal entity.
other than himself personally. ’cause that’s sole proprietorship is still a legal entity. and then obviously legacy plans for both he and his wife. And I was able to not do that for him ’cause I had zero experience as an attorney, but I was able to kind of walk him through the process and help him make sure, look, these are the things you need to get your ducks in a row, to protect yourself, protect your wife, protect the business, et cetera.
And it’s [01:03:00] worked out so far.
VINNIE C: So 15 years ago what do you feel like your biggest contribution to the success of the brand has been?
JOHN SNELL: Ooh,
VINNIE C: Yeah. You go
JOHN SNELL: so there’s Bob set up his, I mean, he’s, he’s, did you ever meet Bob? I, I don’t think you meet him in person.
For those of who were fortunate to meet Bob, he was probably the most principled person I’ve ever met. whatever it was, he lived by his code. And that really is what, so you talk about turning the business around.
I mean, some of it was just basic things that I could do that I say, look, we need to fill these orders. We need to, like, that’s, anyone could have done that. What I was, I think I, what I was able to do is be able to take Bob’s principles and kind of move them to the forefront of the business. Meaning in how we market.
You know, there’s 50 mouthpiece makers out there. Well, what makes [01:04:00] Bob Reeves different? Well, first of all, how we treat you. You know, we don’t care if you’re Doc Severance and walking in or a high school kid looking for their first, jazz band mouthpiece. Like, we’re gonna spend the day for, you know, with you, we’re gonna make you feel like the most important person on the planet.
And not try to sell you a mouthpiece, but see, can we find a solution for you that’s gonna make you sound better now that you have to play big fat band charts in, in 10th grade. Right. Um, You know, or whatever the case may be. and also getting Bob out there, you know, no one’s gonna have the experience that he had because Bob was a, a one man show for so long.
And I’m, I’m talking specific. He had a lot of help, credit to Ko Skinness, who’s at Stoby now, you know, he was really. Integral in turning Bob from kind of a, I don’t wanna say hobby, but basically a garage shop where you go in and get some cool work done to an actual business. KO was very that he made that happen, but prior to that, like in the sixties and seventies, I don’t think there’s anyone in the [01:05:00] world who worked with the quantity and caliber of players that Bob Reeves did during
those 20, 25 years.
You know, you’d look at the artist role in the studios in 1968. You know, you have the old guys like Manny Klein and Ray Skai and Klemen and Johnny Adino, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on. I mean, you on raci, you know, 2D trumpets, you have those that generation, but then you have.
Jerry, Hey, Chuck Finley, you know, Malcolm McNabb, brick Baptist uh, you know, and then the next generation of studio players coming in, know, plus you have the artists that live out Herb Albert, and you have I mean a list goes on and on and on and on. And they all came to Bob and they all, a lot of ’em needed something and they had to go to the studio right afterwards.
Bud Brisboy, you know, the famous story, bud comes in and wants a custom mouthpiece and to go and play that infamous Henry Mancini album that he solos on one of them that [01:06:00] afternoon, like the margin of error that Bob had early on in his career was like, was zero. You know, he wouldn’t have made it if he couldn’t solve these players.
Sometimes complicated problems at a very high level early on, but it was because of Bob’s machining, Bob’s, I mean, amazing musical era. And his knowledge of acoustics and design,
VINNIE C: Being, being able to identify through talking to Bud Brisboy what he wanted, and then by hand, none of this CNC crap right by hand on a lathe. Make that mouthpiece. Oh, what an
JOHN SNELL: Zero. Yeah. Zero margin for error and times are different. And maybe that skill’s not necessary, although I would argue that it is because you know, the, the scene has changed. there’s companies that make their name by sending out a mouth, a box of mouthpieces and say, Hey, find something that works out of this.
You know? And you have the time to go through [01:07:00] and say, oh, this one’s kind of close. And then like. We still work to the standard as if it’s 1972 and whoever’s coming in, even if it’s a high school player, or I had a, I mean this amazing doctor and he told me 50 times, he’s an amateur player. And I was like, I don’t want to hear that.
You’re an amateur, you’re a musician. You, whether you get paid to make music or not, you’re no different than me or Arturo Sandoval or anyone else. Alison Balsam. Like, we are musicians, we’re artists and you make music and we’re gonna do something for you. You know? and I treated him as if he had to go down to Sony Records tomorrow and, play a Jerry Hay chart, you know, like.
VINNIE C: a lifelong customer that you’ve created. There really a life lifelong customer that you’ve created that personal experience. I mean, from the first time you and I talked and met, you know, it was just, first of all, just to back up just a little bit, the whole law school [01:08:00] thing and doing well on the LSATs and passing the bar the first time, it’s glaringly apparent that you are not a prototypical trumpet player in the intelligence department.
So let’s just get that right out of the way. You’re not a dummy. You haven’t killed nearly enough brain cells playing a double high seas. and then the, part of it where, when you and I met the first time at, at the casino out there, I felt like I’d known you for 30 years.
Like we went to high school together and, and we were buds. And so I think that translates and when people feel like they’re special, special boys or special, special girls, that’s gonna create that kind of, and I think that comes from you, but it also comes by example from Bob, from what understand.
JOHN SNELL: and that’s it. It’s I mean, not to put it coldly, but it’s systemizing. The principles that Bob had. He just didn’t have the skillset to run a company with those principles. He had them themselves, and fortunately through his years, he had employees that were good enough or [01:09:00] would latch onto certain enough things that business survived for 50 years.
but then we developed a team starting in 2010, 2011. That, you know, I don’t even think Bob dreamed of what the shop, you know, Bob was born in 31. He survived the depression. You know, he in the Navy. You know, we’re a product of our times. And, and if there was any fault of Bob, it was always, everything was limited resources, oh, we are not gonna have enough money to do this, or We can’t do this because of this.
And then, and I get it, like that’s. Where he came from. And that’s also what made him a tough cookie and made him survive dire times sometimes or slim times. But what, what I was able to bring was kind of a growth mindset and a look. It’s not resources we lacking, it’s resourcefulness, you know? And thankfully Bob was the one of the most resourceful people I know.
He just didn’t realize he can also apply that to his business, you know? [01:10:00] So being able to connect those dots for him all, he’s like, he had an old Navy term, but basically the eagle always takes a dump on Friday, you know, meaning when you’re in the Navy, and that’s a nice way of putting it. You guys can fill in the blanks or imagination, you know, but basically, look, how was your week?
Well, you know, the eagle, meaning the US government paid my salary this week,
VINNIE C: Yep.
JOHN SNELL: you know, and it was like, Bob we’re fine. You know, business is gonna make it.
VINNIE C: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: We need to think about, well, how are we gonna grow? Do you want a new building? Like should we, how do you want to expand the shop? and then all of a sudden, and this is one of the things I’m really grateful for, I was able to provide for Bob, is the last 10 years, 12 years of his life, he really didn’t have to worry about finances.
He didn’t have to worry about how he was gonna pay employees. He, I mean, there was months and years where he didn’t take home a paycheck because he had to make payroll and pay rent and things like that. Things that every small business owner has probably experienced at one point or another. So that combined with the fact that getting him to [01:11:00] Japan, getting him to Europe, getting him out to ITGs again, people could show their appreciation to him to kind of bring his life full circle again.
You know, he was able to reconnect with Doc Severson who had, they hadn’t talked to for years and things like that. So I, you know, knowing that when Bob did eventually pass away, he was. At the top in terms of his recognition and his things like that. Not that he ever asked for it, but he slaved away in the back to make trumpet players.
He’s like, all I wanna do is hear your song. that’s why he did what he did. He came up with the alignment because he could hear players struggling with different valve combinations and it got in the way of the song. It’s like, I want to hear your song. I wa The Gap was a resistance thing and dialing in the, kind of the response of the note.
’cause he could hear players struggling and he realized, well this is a quick way, fairly easy way that can dial in the horn so you can make music better. ’cause I want to hear more music less struggling. [01:12:00] You know, that’s so to get, have him end his life, knowing that he had that kind of recognition worldwide was kind of my, I sleep better at night knowing that I had a part in that.
VINNIE C: Well, kudos to you. I, I think it’s awesome that you came in when you did and the way that you did and made the sacrifices. And again your awesome wife, Susie. And I’m sure the kids having to put up with all kind of stuff. Let’s talk about the products. Now, obviously you have the mouthpieces and the sleeves and the alignments and just as a side note, John did five horns for me at Adam Fest and just slaved the way over him.
It was great. It was incredible to watch. I’m still a little embarrassed, about the first one when he asked me, what have you been eating?
JOHN SNELL: nothing I haven’t seen before. It’s
VINNIE C: I’m sure. But you know, and they play better. They just play better. The pitch, the slotting, just everything about it. And so, I would highly encourage folks to avail themselves of your service.
They’re reasonable quick and, and it’s an easy [01:13:00] process, but the products that you’ve decided to carry in the shop, the guard bags and I’m a huge convert. I just had a couple of custom ones made with the Vinny and the Hitman logo on ’em. So I got a triple and a big wheelie thing, you know, that will never fit in an overhead, but I’m gonna make it fit in an overhead.
But I love that company. Tell me about some of the other companies that you’ve decided I know van Lar.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah.
VINNIE C: Charlie Davis trumpets. Right. But tell me the other products that you offer and then tell me about this recent acquisition by which is really exciting.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, so, even though we make stuff, we make the mouthpieces, we do the alignments. We always have considered us ourselves a service company. and this goes back to Bob. This was not new. I wholeheartedly agree when I came back. And again, part of our marketing, part of our, training all of that stuff was how can we serve our customers better through consultations?
Maybe it [01:14:00] is a stock mouthpiece, maybe it’s a custom mouthpiece, maybe it’s an alteration, maybe it’s an alignment, et cetera. And we’re never going to change how we make our mouthpieces part of the secret, part of the magic of a Bob Reeves mouthpieces can only be done with hand work. and I’m sure there’s some fancy CNC machinists out there that are rolling their eyes at me.
And that’s fine. You know, I get it. I, I’m not gonna go on too much of a tangent, but I, one of our hand work videos on Instagram went super viral. I mean, millions of views, and somehow we got into Machinist TikTok and machinist Instagram. Like it hit that algorithm, the number, I mean, I thought trumpet players were bad. Like, you get a salty machinist that, you know, I don’t know what he thinks of he or she thinks we do here, but like the insults and the, Hey, I’m gonna send you a CAD file and a CNC and it’s gonna change your life. And man, you’re gonna, you’re doing this, you’re doing that. It. You know, I’m not gonna go work at one of these [01:15:00] aerospace places next door because I don’t have that kind of training, but the training that Brett and I and the other folks here have money couldn’t buy.
so anyway, I find that hysterical about the machining stuff. We do. We do that stuff very well and we take pride in it. But we are a service company and we can only make stuff so fast. And so as we’re trying to grow as a company to help more trumpet players, help more trombone brass players in general to ex expand our reach we can only make so many mouthpieces.
I, we can only physically do so many alignments. So we started thinking more of, what is our purpose in, our space. And that means bringing products. As a service to our customers. van Lar was our first foray because at the time, the only person you could get Van Lar instruments from was Bobby Finley studio trumpet player.
Bobby Finley not a music store. He’s a trumpet player. And I’m sure over a few drinks with hu the friendly agreement.
VINNIE C: more than a few.
JOHN SNELL: Mean, yeah, the, the friendly [01:16:00] for the friendly agreement to, Hey, I’ll take some of your horns back to LA to show ’em to my friends. turned into, well, Bobby Finley is the North American distributor of fan LA products, you know, so that, that was an opportunity because Bobby was looking for the door the exit without dropping hu you know, and hydrant and the Van Lar folks, he didn’t wanna leave them hanging.
But also he didn’t want to go to represent them at trade shows and be a music store. He’s a studio travel player. And well, I mean, we have a beautiful relationship, had with Hu and Hy and still do with Hydrant and Yannick.
VINNIE C: Yannick is gold. And he learned right at the feet of
JOHN SNELL: few.
VINNIE C: and he is carrying on that legacy. Their horns are as good or better than ever.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. so it was an one, it was an opportunity for us, you know, great brand exclusivity. Synergy to use a corporate-y term between how they treat their customers, how they work with equipment, in terms of [01:17:00] instruments similar to how we do with our mouthpieces. And so it was a good fit and it was so, it was a service to our customers because you walk in the door, we’re not gonna say, Hey, you should be playing this van Lar
VINNIE C: right.
JOHN SNELL: but one, if you’re looking for one, we can advise you on them and we can get one in the door for you.
And two, when you’re here working on something and maybe an option you didn’t even know that existed. so it started with that and that went really well. Charlie Davis started his line and that was just like a natural extension because, Charlie wants to make them, he wants to tweak them. He doesn’t want to.
Sell them. You know, he’s similar to Bobby Finley, he’s a trumpet player. He wants to play, he wants to do the things he enjoys, he doesn’t wanna do that side of things. so we were able to, carry those and distribute for him. And then, a few years ago, actually it was during COD, we realized there was a, a kind of a vacuum that was created in LA in the retail space.
And, we had expanded into [01:18:00] trombone mouthpieces. All of us at the shop at the time were trumpet players and we didn’t speak the language. And it just so happened one of the best retail, folks in the business out here, Robert Kuber, found he didn’t have a job. he had 25 years experience running. One of the most popular, he was the floor manager, so to speak, of one of the most popular high-end shops, bras, shops in la.
he was sitting at home twiddling thumbs and I was like, Hey.
VINNIE C: Come.
JOHN SNELL: Robert need job. So Robert’s been here almost five years now with after COVID, and he came up here and was like, why aren’t you selling polishing cloths? why aren’t you selling valve oil? Why aren’t you selling trombone spray?
Why aren’t you selling mutes? Why don’t everyone needs a Tom Crown mute? Why aren’t you selling Tom Crown mute?
VINNIE C: and the margin, on those sweet. You know, it’s nice. It, helps.
JOHN SNELL: and yeah, everyone needs ’em. No, I mean, no one had a place to go to get them in la Oh, by the way, we also have regular people coming in here all the time that would see that on the, I mean, it’s like [01:19:00] a no-brainer. I just had no real retail experience in, especially in this space. I’m doing what I’m doing.
You know, so to have a fresh pair of eyes and say, man, we’ve sold so many polishing cloths in the last five years, you know. Thanks to Mr. Kuber. Well, and then, and then he said, do you know how many Shires trombones I sold at the old store? I was like, we’re not really, we don’t have room for trombone.
Like, really? Like I don’t,
VINNIE C: Don’t fight it, Johnny. Don’t fight
JOHN SNELL: don’t fight it. Don’t fight. Three of three. This was probably three and a half. We’ve been carrying Shires. Long story short, we carry Shires. I finally listened, but it wa I think it was like three years he was nagging me to carry the Shires trombones. And now because of the trombones, we also carry the trumpets, which also I’m a fan of.
so it’s like next thing you know, I’m, I can’t get to my desk ’cause there’s 35 trombones that we have no space for. It’s like where did we go? Like, but it’s been [01:20:00] incredible because we’re not trying to sell you a trombone when you come in or a Shires trumpet, but if it’s the right tool for the right job, and we can help you get into it.
it’s amazing. And we also, because we’re not pure retail, and god bless those stores, like we wouldn’t have school bands, we wouldn’t have rental programs. We wouldn’t have any of that without the great music stores in our, around the world. but we don’t have the pressure. Like if you come in and you decide you don’t need a trombone, we’re still cranking out mouthpieces in the back.
Like, we’re fine. So we don’t have any of that pressure that a pure retail store has to turn over inventory and things like that. So it’s, really a blessing business-wise for me. You know,
when I do the books to know that, look, if this isn’t the best trombone or the best trumpet for this customer, like, it’s fine.
tell him that. And that comes back to Bob. You know, not that we were ever trying to really be pushy with anybody. However, I, this is a great [01:21:00] Bob story. I remember when we were carrying Van Lar, a customer emailed, said, I really want a van Lar trumpet. Great. We have four or five in stock.
It’d be a perfect time. A customer was up in Northern California. So five hour drive away, made an appointment, came down, we had all five Van Lars polished up, ready to go. And I worked with the customer probably three or four hours going through the models, narrowing them down here, try this, try that.
And he really found a model he liked. You know, and I, again, I, I don’t wanna say that I was pushy or it’s like, man, but it was an easy sale. This guy was finding a horn that he loved the brand and he really liked his horn. And his previous horn was a great Bach. I mean, he sounded good on that horn, but he really liked the sound of the Van Lar and the way it felt.
Bob shows up. comes in, Hey, you know, introduce you to this customer. He’s just getting ready to buy this Van Lar. And he’s like, oh Bob, can I play these for you? You know? Sure, of course. So [01:22:00] he plays the Van Lar and Bob says, let me hear you on your original horn. And he plays a few notes on his Bach and Bob says nah, you sound like a B player.
VINNIE C: Bobby boy, whatcha doing?
JOHN SNELL: And you know what I mean? He was right. He was right.
VINNIE C: that’s a great, that is a killer story about exactly what you guys stand for. Oh
JOHN SNELL: and, you know, I’m sitting there like submitting payroll in the back, pulling my hair out, like, and not, you know, one, it was like, look, this guy really wanted a van Lar, he sounded good on it, he sounded good on it. It was great. Like it did things for him that his Bach didn’t do. And I was happy to sell a horn.
He was happy to buy a horn that he flew down that he really wanted. I spent three or four hours with him listening and talking. So there was like that time in there too, just, you know, [01:23:00] whisked away in literally 20 seconds. and and, so, and then the kind of, the code of that is the guy went back and he went back and forth between the horn.
He had singled out and his Bach. And after about 20 minutes he came out, he’s like, you know, there’s something in the sound of my Bach, even though this note’s kind of outta tune and it feels kind of like there is something about this horn. I think I’m just gonna stick with my horn. You know?
And by that point, I, I had accepted the truth. And also I am also not just.
VINNIE C: Right.
JOHN SNELL: salesman. You know, I, I make myself out to be like the bad guy, but it was really, I was like, well, yeah, man, play your Bach. and, and the thing with Van Lars, I think we sold the horn next week anyway. ’cause they’re that good.
So, but, but
VINNIE C: Here’s the, here’s the important question. Did you sell him a polishing cloth?
JOHN SNELL: not then. This was, ’cause this was, pre Robert Kuber. So I, I could have, I could have made that extra eight, $8 up sale. Um, ’cause you know, [01:24:00] the pity, well, I didn’t buy a $4,000 horn, but I will buy this polishing cloth and a, a heman too, you know. But go, that story was to represent the fact that, like, when, I love Robert and all the folks here, because we, same thing, we had a guy here playing his horn and he was playing a Q series Shires and wanted to come back because we had a custom of a similar horn.
He wanted try the custom played the both. And Kuber said. Yeah, man. Play the q you sound great on it, you know? And that’s the right answer. That’s the right answer, you know, not, Hey, I’m gonna make an extra 250 commission this and move them in me. So anyway, so we’re, we’re in a very fortunate place.
I, I, I pinch myself every day because, we have the luxury of providing cool products that you’re not gonna find everywhere, although guard bags are now ubiquitous. But I love them and I love the company, I love folks there, uh dear friends of mine. and the last part you asked about is our recent acquisition.
[01:25:00] Um, And again, another cool mute that was not on my radar until about four years ago. VIN Mutes outta Sweden, and folks listening, I’ve mentioned them several times, and you may not have looked them up yet. But now you’re gonna have to because we, we own the company.
VINNIE C: And we’ll put the, we’ll put the, you know, the link and all that good stuff down in the,
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. And just real brief vin, I mean a vintage brand from the, and I should know now that we own the company when it was actually founded, but I believe it was late forties, early fifties Gunner Vin in Sweden started making mutes.
And I mean, the most famous mute is the Dizzy Gillespie. The Bop mute and the Cup mute dizzy used them almost his whole career. And it’s, we still have an agreement with the Dizzy Gillespie’s estate to use his name and likeness and still, you know, call it that because that mute was so important to Dizzy’s image.
And his, his legacy, you know, this, his sound, that quintessential bebop cup [01:26:00] and bop mute sound is, was Alvin. And I mean, that thing’s a hunker, it’s a solid copper chrome plated thing. Weighs a ton. But if you want that sound. That’s it, you know, and it’s still the tools. I, I was out there in Sweden a month ago, saw the original tooling that had made all of Dizzy’s mutes fats among many others.
Maynard Ferguson used the, uh, it’s the same, same design mute, the, they have one design for the Poppy Harman mute for bop mute. Dizzy’s was chrome plated copper Maynard’s was aluminum. I think he liked the white painted aluminum, but, uh, they make the, but same design, same pitch, same similar sound.
Obviously the material’s gonna change the sound but the history there, you know, Clark, Terry Snooky, you name it. I’ve mentioned fats in the trumpet world. Use the cups, use the Harmons. There’s a great video of Snooky Young using the cup kind of as a plunger. He used to famously do.
And thanks to my good buddy in Japan, I own. Snookie’s horn his large bo [01:27:00] severance in gold, plated severance in with the vin mute in the case. So we brought that one home. Have that in the back of the shop.
VINNIE C: You gotta hang that on the wall,
man. That’s a conversation That’s a. That is a really good, Hey, so, you were telling me about the original, I mean, gunner, VIN, that guy was gonna be successful if he was a fisherman. That’s a great name
JOHN SNELL: Right.
VINNIE C: Right? So, tell me about the equipment and then aren’t there generational spinners of these
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. So, so Gunner, I’m an old man gunner, and there’s some great letters and, you know, things between him and some of the artists. And they also, they did straight mutes, which we still make. And Hoka Hardenberger famously plays those. The, he plays the copper straight and the copper cup as well.
he’s been playing those for decades and tons of recordings of his, and if you see ’em in recital. And on the trombone side of things, Christian Lindbergh has a few of his own mo models, uh, N’s Landgren, famous for his red trombone, [01:28:00] red Yamaha trombone. We have a matching chili red, bop mute for him.
so I mean, there’s, there’s so many great artists that use that those those mutes through the years. And so here, yeah, this is a really cool part. So, kind of give you the transition. Like this family kind of fell outta love or just lost interest in the company. Maybe in the like late nineties and it just kind of sat stagnant.
all the tools were still in boxes, but just they didn’t really do anything with it. And then, uh, in 2019, late 2019 lasso Lindgren, who I’ve had on here had an interest and bringing these mutes back, there’s, people would always ask for them. And also he’s Swedish and turned to come. Come to find out his mother was the bookkeeper for the family.
And so he grew up around the factory. And just, you know, that was part of his heritage and his growing up as a trumpet player was being around all of these mutes. So in late 2019 and then finally finishing the deal in 2020, LASA bought the company and started. [01:29:00] Revitalizing it, advertising, creating a website, creating social media getting artist agreements in place again, and really bringing the, I had never heard of the company, honestly prior to Lasa taking over, over but the problem was two months after he bought the company, COVID hits. So poor Lasa, I mean, I, here he is, you know, fabulous trumpet player, recording on TV touring COVID hits. Holy crap. I own a mute company and my, you know, I have zero gigs for the foreseeable future. and he, I, I don’t know how he, I mean, I know how he did it. He’s resourceful, he’s brilliant and he cares about the heritage of the company and the, the product.
And he’s well connected. So he got mutes in the right hands, including our hands. He’s, he sent out a whole box of mutes a few years ago to us to try out, and that’s when we started carrying him. But it got to the point where it was too much, you know, he needed to focus. Now that everything’s open, he needed to focus back on his [01:30:00] playing career.
as he told me, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me telling me this, John, I’m just a dumb jazz trumpet player. What do I, what do I know about running a business? And actually, and he a lot more than I think he gives himself credit for. ’cause he did revitalize the brand. but now we’re taking the reins over, he got it going, he got the tra trajectory going up, and then now we’re gonna take the reins over and keep things, going and very excited to do it.
The most important part is how they’re made. Like I’ve said a few times, the original tooling, I saw it myself, original Mandrels and get this. So the, I met the metal spinner, Michael or Mikhail, and uh, he’s in the middle of nowhere, Sweden and this gorgeous factory. I, it’s like coming from LA traffic and noise, hustle and bustle.
Like I, I was almost ready to just move the shop there, when we visited. but guess so get this, he is the son of the original metal spinner. So his father spent his whole career spinning metal, aluminum, [01:31:00] copper, not just exclusively for the mutes, but I mean a big part of his business was spinning the VIN mutes.
And, uh, Michael was doing something else and decided, Hey, I really wanna take on what my father did. This was years ago, many years ago, and took over his father’s spinning business, metal spending business. and has taken it from there. so yeah, we, we had a great meeting. He showed me how he spun the mutes and, and see his metal spinnings different from what we do, turning mouthpieces, but I, you know, diff different process, similar in some respects.
But the care he takes, you know, I had no idea like, the bigger mutes, like some of the trombone mutes, it takes an hour or sometimes over an hour to do the spinning, you know, trumpet, mutes take almost as long as it takes for us to make a mouthpiece, you know, and to see for us, like a big thing is the finishing, you know, the what’s the finish of the metal?
Is it rough? Is there chatter? He was spinning some stuff for us while we were there and it looked like a mirror, you know? And he is like, yeah, this is before we [01:32:00] even polish it up. I was like you’re kid. Like you don’t need to polish this. Like, this is, I can see myself in the middle. And like it, it started as a, an aluminum disc like 20 minutes ago.
So the craftsmanship and the carer is like, oh man, this is gonna work. This is incredible. I couldn’t, like, you can’t find people like this anymore. And they fell in our lap, you know?
VINNIE C: Well, let me, lemme tell you something about what you just said, John. You could replace Bob Reeve’s brass in that sentence. In my opinion, you just can’t find people like this anymore. And it’s amazing that you’re carrying on the legacy in the spirit, of Bob. And, congratulations on everything.
And, and I hope you sell ’em all. And, And, you get way behind and you ha and you’re still selling them. And I think that’s, I think it’s fantastic. man. This has been awesome, John.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Especially you’re amazing. I, uh
VINNIE C: listen you did all the work, man. So I do have a question for you.
So [01:33:00] at the beginning of this, before we turned on the recording, everybody, John mentioned that he was a little anxious about being in the hot seat. So now that it’s over, what do you think, John? How was it?
JOHN SNELL: Uh, You led me through this. You’re amazing. amazing. You might be hearing from me for future episodes.
VINNIE C: I’m in man, a hundred percent. And by the way, that the amount of money that I paid John to say that was very generous. Very generous.
JOHN SNELL: I think with all your extra time you need to start a podcast.
VINNIE C: Oh yeah, sure. You know, I had one for a little while. It was called the Fit Musician, and it really went swimmingly, but it was during COVID and we did pretty well during COVID.
You know, we just kind of, with the remote recording, you don’t have to worry about spreading a pandemic, you know, and so it was kind of cool. Okay, so I. I think we’re gonna land the plane to quote, uh, one of my other favorite podcast guys. And I am going to ask you the question that you ask everybody else, probably the most important question that we can ask, [01:34:00] leaving us your best piece of advice for now.
Wait,
JOHN SNELL: Ooh.
VINNIE C: trumpet players, trombone players you know, people who are trumpet players and trombone players that are thinking about becoming lawyers and people who are trumpet players or trombone players that now own a widely recognized, very successful business. What is your best piece of advice?
JOHN SNELL: Ooh, woo, man. And I, you know, it’s I thought about this ’cause I knew you were gonna do
VINNIE C: Uhhuh?
JOHN SNELL: doesn’t make it any easier. I I really feel for my guests and then for folks listening that, ’cause I mean, a number of people say, oh man, that’s a tough question. And then they come up with this gem, you without the, you know, ability to actually think about it in advance.
so with that context, I think it’s the same piece of advice for everybody and it’s gonna be a little bit longer than it should be, but that’s okay. to me, in terms [01:35:00] of creating a good life for yourself, there’s two i the sides of the coin, or there’s two things that you really have to master.
And the easiest one to me is achievement, you know, or success. science of success, right? If you want to be a trumpet player, there’s a million methods out there and a million people who have done it that you can use to guide your path. If you wanna run a marathon, there’s more than if you wanna run a business.
If you wanna lose weight, like you said, you know, like. To get from A to B, the information is out there and now it’s even easier and cheaper to get that information and you apply it. That’s one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is then the fulfillment part. And that’s where I think me personally, and a lot of the folks that I’ve met and talked to and worked with commonly fall short, they get the achievement part for better or worse.
But then once they’re there, they don’t, it doesn’t mean anything. They don’t have the fulfillment and there’s no, well, there’s lots of books on that, but there’s no. Method for [01:36:00] you or me on that? You have to find that yourself. What gets you juiced? What gets you up in the morning? and then how do you connect the two?
How do you connect the achievement to the fulfillment? And that’s something I’ve struggled with off and on all through my life. And I think if there’s anything I know how to do now, that I’m proud of, it’s connecting those two. and looking back, like I remember going to law school and I knew I was gonna get choked up at this point.
I remember the first time I got my horn out after I quit playing. I gone to law school, I had visions of making all this money, and I got my trumpet out for the first time without that pressure of having to make a living, playing without having to be good for anybody. And I remembered how fun it was to play again, you know, and I was like, this is it.
This is fulfillment. I’m playing trumpet for me. and if I can make someone else happier, whether I’m doing it for money, I can make that connection great, but I’m not gonna care [01:37:00] after that. And same thing with the business. Like, man, if we had a great quarter this year, well what does it mean? So what, how are my employees, are my employees better off now after this quarter?
Whether we made money or not, are they gonna be rock stars? Like, is one of my trombone players gonna thank me 20 years from now? Because we launched his trombone career because he had a flexible place to work that paid for his transition from student to professional. You know, things like that, like that gets me juiced.
And so I went from A to B in terms of achievement or success, and I can use that to fuel what fulfills me. And I didn’t even get into family stuff, you know, wife, children, parents, friends, things like that. That’s it. That’s it. So for those folks listening. Man, practice your Clarks practice your long tones.
Win that audition, you know, but connect it to what makes you juiced.
VINNIE C: John, I [01:38:00] mean, that didn’t sound rehearsed at all, man. I’ve listened to a ton of these podcasts. You’re pissing me off that is by far leaps and bounds the best answer I’ve ever heard anybody give to that. It just encapsulates anything. You could transfer that to anything you do anytime, anywhere.
it’s amazing. You are a gem. I want you to keep up the good and great work. I mean, just absolutely amazing and I’m so privileged to count you as my friend
JOHN SNELL: Ah.
VINNIE C: I definitely have to come out there and, spend a whole bunch of money. Although I did, I feel like I paid for a couple of plane tickets out with,
JOHN SNELL: you’ve done your fair share. You’ve done your fair share. But you made me cry, Vinny, man, I mean, it is hot up here, but you know, I didn’t come into work thinking, man, I’m gonna get emotional talking about heavy valve caps and valve man, come on.
VINNIE C: Okay. Just as a, the one last thing I, you know, I, I [01:39:00] have, as you know, I have heavy valve bottoms and, and tops and all that stuff. And, uh, you know, I see the arguments online. It’s just a, you know, a sugar pill or whatever the deal is. It really doesn’t make any difference. And I sometimes jokingly say, when somebody busts my chops about having heavy caps, I say, tell that to my 50 plus Grammy nominations and 25 wins. You will qualify to criticize my horn when you get past that. I just say goodbye.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah,
the proof in the pudding.
VINNIE C: Yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Well, Vinny, I have to thank you. That was. Much less painless than I thought it was. It was better than going to the dentist. So thank you.
VINNIE C: So, much less painless or painful? You, yeah.
JOHN SNELL: Well that’s why you did the interview ’cause you have way with I don’t much less painful than I thought it [01:40:00] would be. Thank
you so
VINNIE C: I’m not sure if you’re convincing yourself our audience or me, but, know, whatever it takes. John, you were, you were awesome. And, and it was easy for me because I, I love hearing the stories. I mean, the laundry list of players that you have rubbed elbows with and made.
Trumpet playing, hopefully made trumpet playing easier for them. It’s staggering to me, and I, I could listen to it all day. We, I think we could have done, easily done four hours in my opinion.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Well, I like, as I said in the intro, your guess was long-winded, 12 years of an ask asking questions. And you kinda let the floodgates loose. It was a lot of fun, and I hope I hope our listeners now I’m not as much of a, an enigma as, uh. It has been for the last 13 years.
And, um, yeah. Oh yeah, it was a lot of fun. And now actually being in this side of things, now, maybe my interviews will be better with a guest. ’cause now I have a little bit of perspective.
VINNIE C: I I’m slightly concerned that thousands of trumpet players and trombone players and french horn players are now gonna come [01:41:00] to the shop and say, Hey I’ll take a polishing cloth, number one. And two. I’ve got this situation with my landlord, and I was hoping maybe you could, you could look at the paper where you’re in trouble, bro.
You better get your hourly together because you’re gonna have to have another office with you know, put on a suit and tie and do all that.
JOHN SNELL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is a thing. It’s like two things you never do is tell people that you know something about computers or that you’re an attorney. ’cause
VINNIE C: You know both. And you do both.
JOHN SNELL: a little Yeah. But know that all these people, yeah. High school friend from 35 years ago.
Yeah. So, you know, I had this restraining order that like. Uh, it’s true.
yeah. Yeah. we’ll wait those emails to come in. But uh, no, it was a lot of fun. And I should mention, I talked about Robert Kuber here. And you know, if we had a four hours, to do the interview, I did want to mention before we wrap up that the [01:42:00] team here. At Bob Reeves is really why I’m able to do what I’m able to do.
And you know, Kuber, we talk about with the retail thing and the, uh, we joked about the, the polishing cloth. But, uh, Jose, who’s been here 38 years making cranking out stock mouthpieces, I mean, you can’t get more consistent than that. Brett Kendall might. Partner who is, he’s the craftsman here. He’s the one who apprenticed with the custom mouthpiece making with Bob.
Uh, and he is running the shop when I’m doing all this fuddy duddy fun stuff, recording podcasts and things. And Andrew and Spencer, the like, you know, we have the best team in the planet. So, I just want to shout out to them ‘ ‘
VINNIE C: it’s a smart, a brilliant man that surrounds himself with, people who are as good or better than he is. And, the fact that you recognize your strengths, the dulce tones that you put out over the podcast there you know, and your weaknesses, and you’ve surrounded yourself with people that.
pick up the slack where it’s needed. And, uh, I mean, the shop’s reputation and the, the [01:43:00] gear’s reputation I think speaks for itself after 50 years. How long?
JOHN SNELL: We’re on 58. Yeah. 58 years. So, yeah, we gotta stick around for another 58. So Vinny, thank you so much. Can’t wait to hang again. Uh, Thank you for doing the, the heavy lifting on this one and website. I mean, everyone knows bob reeves.com. I don’t have anything else to plug for myself other than we have some great.
Guests coming up back to our regular programming next week. And uh, so everyone you know, Bob reeves.com hit that like and subscribe button and Vinny website, social media folks should follow.
VINNIE C: trumpet vinny.com. and then it’s basically just Vinny and the hitman on all the socials we’ve got, you know, TikTok and Instagram and just, good God. And we’re available now on all the streaming platforms and so we’re trying, man, 14 piece band, huge money maker. Wink. So yeah. Thank you so much for supporting
JOHN SNELL: and we’ll have links to all of those. of those. And since you did all the heavy lifting, do you want to have the [01:44:00] honor and taking us out?
VINNIE C: I will, I got two things to say. First of all, go be awesome, which you’re doing a great job of, and let’s go make some music.
JOHN SNELL: You’re a pro at this. I, it usually takes me like half an hour to do a two minute intro.
VINNIE C: We’ll see.
JOHN SNELL: Okay.
VINNIE C: John Snell is the Kno Co. Yeah, see already. And they just started cutting my lawn outside, so you’ll get that in the background. Here we go. Three, two, slate it. John Snell is the cono.
