Not
only is it about time I wrote something but way past time for another Trombone
Hero. I might have mentioned before that Pittsburgh was a great place to grow
up for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that it was such a great
place for jazz. Just off the top of my head I can recite the names of Roy
Eldridge, Mary Lou Williams, Slide Hampton, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine,
Billy Eckstine, Errol Garner, Dodo Marmarosa and Billy Strayhorn as all being from
the Pittsburgh. And if you played trombone, Matty Shiner, the low brass teacher
at Duquesne University was world famous and a lot of his former students ended
up teaching in the area. I was lucky enough to have been taught by one of them,
Jack Lapato. When Maynard Ferguson
started touring the States again in the early '70s he came to Pittsburgh a lot,
possibly because one of his trombonists was a local, Randy Purcell - a fabulous
player who, sadly, died fairly young a couple of years ago. But one of the
undisputed kings of the local Pittsburgh jazz scene was a guy named Harold
Betters whose trombone could be heard for 17 years at a club in Shadyside
called "The Encore." Like most jazz clubs it's long been closed and I
read it's now a lingerie shop, which eases the pain somewhat.
