Trumpet Player Nick Drozdoff was born in Chicago, lived for a couple of years in Indiana, but was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Nick Drozdoff graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in 1976. Nick worked his way through college as a co-op student engineer at McDonnell Douglas aircraft and gigging in churches whenever he could.
When Nick was 10 or 11 years old, Nick fell in love with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Then he discovered Rafael Mendez. Next, he discovered Doc Severensin, Clark Terry, and Maynard Ferguson. Nick soon found a love for the trumpet. When Nick was 12, he rented a trumpet using lawn mowing money and started teaching himself to play. It was love from the first moment to Nick.
In Saint Louis, Nick's first teacher was Bill Bay. Bill's father was Mel Bay, a bit of a famous fixture on the music scene down there. Bill was an EXCELLENT trumpet player and a good teacher. Nick then studied with Eddie Brauer, former first trumpet with the St. Louis Municipal Opera company. Eddie was also a very good teacher for an enthusiastic young student. While Nick was in college, he studied with Gary Smith of the St. Louis Symphony whenever he came home. Nick started off my college studies at the University of Missouri at Rolla. Nick transferred to Washington University after his sophomore year.
In college, Nick's trumpet playing experiences were limited in their interest. He played in the school bands at the University of Missouri and Washington University. Nick also played in the Merrimac Community College Big Band, and EXCELLENT big band just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. In the trumpet section with Nick was the late great Maynard Ferguson alumni Dan Welty, the first person Nick ever knew who could willfully play triple high C's. Other than that, Nick was just learning more and more every day and starting to realize that he might have misdirected his academic career by going into engineering. However, upon graduating from Washington University, Nick was still operating under the family understanding - that this "trumpet thing" would just be a hobby while he pursued his career in electrical engineering.
Nick settled in Chicago after he graduated with his engineering degree. There he studied with a variety of trumpet teachers. Nick had a lesson or two with Frank Lisanti. He also had a couple of lessons with Phil Smith before he moved to New York City. Nick's main teacher was Neal Dunlap of Vandercook College of music. Neal was a father figure to Nick in many ways. Nick's own father passed on when he was five years old and his step dad passed on in 1979. Neal was very helpful to Nick as he was making the decision to leave engineering to become a professional trumpet player. Under Neal's tutelage, Nick evolved enough to get hired onto the Maynard Ferguson Big Band.
After graduating from college as an electrical engineer, Trumpet Player Nick Drozdoff moved to Chicago to work as a junior design engineer at Motorola. Nick moved into a small apartment in Schaumburg and quickly got into trouble practicing his trumpet in his room, mutes notwithstanding. Nick relates, "So, I took to sneaking into the nearby junior college (Harper College) and finding unlocked practice rooms. I would sit and practice tunes by my two biggest heroes at the time - Mendez and Ferguson. So my practice sessions would weave a tapestry of technical passages and egregious high notes that would drift down the halls.
One day there was a knock on the practice room door and one of the trumpet teachers at the school was there (Betty D'Asaro - now Betty Eilers) asking who the heck I was. We chatted and she talked me into audition for the Harper College Big Band led by Jim Bestman at that time. I turned up at a rehearsal, sat in and was asked to stay. One of the trumpet players, Sam Westphal was pretty impressed and we became good friends. He convinced me to also start coming down to IIT and play with their big band, too. Neal Dunlap was the director there. He took me under his wing as a teacher / mentor. Both Sam and Neal told me that I was good enough to be a pro and that I should really take my music much more seriously. They felt I had a lot to give.
Sam also started getting me to show up at a suburban night club called Durty Nellie's Irish Pub. Roy Vombrack ran a big band manned largely by folks from Northern Illinois University. This is where I got to know many folks who were to become local Chicago pros. It was also where I was to begin developing a very dubious youthful reputation.
I soon realized that I had learned how to play high notes pretty well, though I was not doing things correctly just yet. I was heavily immersed in the dreaded three p's of bad trumpet playing: press, pinch and pray. Add in a stretch to the embouchure, and you have a recipe for ragingly inconsistent trumpet playing.
In any case, my early life as an aspiring professional musician was defined by my being a loose canon. I was under the impression the way to impress people to get work was to play random high notes on the end of tunes, even if I wasn't playing lead. Keep in mind that I didn't go to a music school to learn proper big band etiquette. The reception to my appearance on the scene was lukewarm. Some recognized that I had something to give. Others saw me as an obnoxious upstart. Add inconsistency to the mix, and this was to spell trouble for me.
TRUMPET PLAYER NICK DROZDOFF
In any case, in 1979, I quit my job as an engineer to go into music full time. I quickly went broke and moved from my apartment into a room at Sam Westphal's house. This lasted several months, and then I really hit bottom. It proved to be quite difficult getting gigs. I had no idea how to do it. So I found a day gig as a maintenance man at a nursing home in Lake Bluff, Illinois. This was a full time job, but the hours were completely flexible. As long as I clocked in my 40 hours per week, they were completely comfortable with my taking off to play gigs and even do some overnighters on the road.
Neal Dunlap recognized me as having potential. He was recommending me for ballroom bands. This actually proved to be very important to my development as a young professional trumpet player. First, it forced me to work on keeping my range from being the driving force behind my developing work. Second, it was my first introduction to having to learn a specific commercial style - ballroom "mickey" band. About the same time, I was discovered by a local salsa band, Sonroa Tropicale. This was yet another style I had to absorb. Also, my range was useful here.
As a result of these developments, this was my first year as a professional musician: working days as a maintenance man and nights in the ballroom and salsa scene. At this point, I was well aware of three professional areas that were very lucrative for musicians: industrials, jingles and jobbing. I had no idea of how to break in, though. Due to my dubious behavior on some on the more popular rehearsal bands, I was not often recommended as a sub. I had to sort things out in order to survive.
In 1979, I also met the woman who was to become my wife. She was a great support to me. Her wisdom and kindness helped guide me through this stage. I was studying books about marketing and sales. With her help, I made the demo tape that was to help me get the gig on Maynard's band. I was also using the phone book and the local artistic directory to develop a prospect list. I was treating my trumpet playing as a product and I was selling this product as any salesman would, using the concepts in the books I was studying.
Things were working, though slowly. I was doing more hit and run gigs with local dance bands and playing a few shows in Elks clubs and lodges. I needed to do more, though. I decided I wanted to try to get on one of the big name big bands that were still touring at that time. I set my sites on Buddy Rich, Clark Terry, Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson. I was going to use my marketing plans to do this.
At the same time, I landed the gig in the pit orchestra at Great America Theme Park in Gurnee, Illinois. This gig helped me make it for a short while, but was doomed. After a few weeks into the spring of 1980, I was in a head on car crash on the way to a big band gig with a buddy. I was in pretty bad shape and wanted to take a few days off. Great America told me there was no sick leave allowed for me. I was either to turn up and play or be fired. My fiance drove me to the gigs and carried my borrowed horn (mine was crushed in the crash) and helped me hobble in from the parking lot to the shows. I had to play left handed as I couldn’t move my right arm. I also had to move down to 4th chair (I was the lead player) as my ribs were so banged up that I could hardly blow. After a couple of weeks of this, I left the pit and went back to free-lancing. This was tough as I had left my day gig as a maintenance man since I thought I was steadily employed at Great America.
TRUMPET PLAYER NICK DROZDOFF
The fall of 1980 was tough. Gigs were hard to come by. I was married in July of 1980 and my wife had a secure job as an assistant attorney general for the state of Illinois. However, we really needed me to work more. As mentioned earlier, with her help, we made my first demo tape. It was a disco version of Besame Mucho. As an aside, you can hear this demo on my website. I sent the demo and a promo kit to all the band leaders mentioned above. I got no response from Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson or Woody Herman. I got a nice rejection letter from Clark Terry. He had already hired a lead player for the tour he was booking.
In December of 1980, I decided to try to develop some clinical work. I went down to the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic at the Conrad Hilton. I walked from one trumpet manufacturer booth to another under the pretense of "trying out horns." My actual plan was to see if I could drum up some interest in my doing clinics and concerts. By the time I got to the Holton booth, I was not only nicely warmed up, I had picked up a following of teenagers who were amused by my grandstanding. I stood at the Holton booth, testing horns and then expounding on the virtues of the horns. In my defense, the horns WERE good. However, I had hit a point of desperation and desperate times require desperate measures. Well, it worked. The salesman working the Holton booth was Joel Schilling, who was destined to become a very good friend and play in brass quintets with me for several years. In any case, Joel told me I could stand there all day! It was helping him sell horns.
I explained to Joel what I was up to. I felt the need to be honest with him. He was extremely nice and took one of my tapes to deliver it to Sandy Sandberg, the vice president in charge of artist relations at Holton. Later that week, I went up to Kenosha and meet with Sandy. He was very kind and explained that I was too unknown and obscure for him to use me as a clinician. He did say that Danny Barber had left Maynard's band and that there might be some openings. He was going to promote the tape to Maynard.
Nothing happened for a few weeks. Then one day in very late December 1980, the phone rang. It was Stu Ross, who managed Maynard's band with Maynard's daughter, Kim. He told me Maynard had seen my promotional materials and listened to the tape. He also had spoken to Sandburg and was very impressed with my playing. I was offered the job playing for Maynard Ferguson playing the second trumpet book.
This proved to be a major turning point in my career. It was also one of the best times of my playing career. I had the opportunity to play for one of the giants of jazz trumpet and one of my heroes. Maynard was everything I expected him to be. He was a very nice man, extremely supportive and kind to the new kid from the Midwest and he was playing some of the best trumpet I had ever heard. I stayed on the band for 8 months in 1981 before I left for reasons I don't need to go into here. Essentially, though, I cherish every bittersweet moment I had on that band. I wish it could have been longer.
TRUMPET PLAYER NICK DROZDOFF PERFORMING WITH MAYNARD FERGUSON
After leaving Maynard's band, my career just opened up. I made my usual sales calls, but the results were quite different now. I had no problem filling my calendar. I was working industrials (big trade shows), jobbing (weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs) and, most importantly, I began breaking into the coveted and lucrative jingle scene. My career and my life as a musician, husband and ultimately seemed set. As peaceful and hopeful as it was, this was to be short lived.
In the mid to late 1980's several things happened that caused all the wheels to fall the wagon. First and most obvious was the advent of samplers and sequencers. This was to have a huge impact on the jingle business. Next was the impact of the growing DJ business. This started to decimate the jobbing business. Next, there was a serious recession in the 1980's. There was a process called "downsizing" that became popular. This essentially destroyed the industrial shows. Next, there was an outfit on the west coast that was doing big business with jingle producers doing non union recording for major national accounts. The AF of M decided to try some things to save the now dying jingle industry. However, the growth of the technology was unstoppable and every move just made things worse. The jingle industry is all but dead in Chicago. ALL of this happened in the course of only a few years in the mid 1980's. Most local musicians were shocked.
In an effort to keep my families (still my wife and me) income up during these hard times, I opened my own contracting business. This was the start of the most brutal 13 years of my professional music life. Yes, my income went up because I was now a band leader. However, I was NOT acting as a Maynard Ferguson. I was primarily a wedding band leader. I did lead brass quintets at school concerts, but this didn’t mitigate the agony of booking bands, hiring and firing musicians, making payrolls, dealing with often dull and thoughtless clients hopelessly mean country club managers and maitre-d's . During this time, my trumpet playing deteriorated badly. I was more inconsistent that ever and my jazz studies were riding an emotional roller-coaster.
In 1989, I was able to get a full ride at Roosevelt University in the masters program. I spent two years getting my masters in classical performance. In 1990, my son was born. All of this caused me to make two major music career decisions. Let me explain:
1.) I loved what I was doing with my trumpet playing in grad school. My trumpet playing started to come back and I started to develop my methods that I teach and write about now. I was reminded of what it is that I love about music. I was also struck by the fact that being a jobbing contractor was NOT fulfilling this need.
2.) With a new child in our family mix, I had to keep my income up.
3.) I had to do more creative expressive music. I also had to go back to being a sideman in the jobbing scene. I couldn't be a band leader.
So here are the two decisions I had to make as a result of these developments. I closed my contracting business and went back to being a sideman with the intention of also developing my solo work. The other decision was to take on a day gig. However, I decided NOT become a high school band director. Instead, I got certified to teach high school physics. I am also certified to teach instrumental music, but I chose physics. This actually gives me MORE flexibility to pursue my career as a trumpet player with fewer conflicts.
For the past 19 years I have been leading a "dual career lifestyle." I still play between 100 and 120 gigs a year. At the height of my freelance career I was up to 250 to 300 engagements a year, but, in the Chicago area, that is almost impossible to achieve any more. My solo career is growing and I am gradually doing more and more clinics and concerts. The fine tuning of my methods and systems of practice have helped in the development of my clinics.
This essentially brings us up to date (May 19, 2010). The number of details I have left out are way to many to even discuss. This is a thumbnail sketch of 40 years and more (and counting) as a professional trumpet player.
TRUMPET PLAYER NICK DROZDOFF
Touring With Maynard Ferguson
Most folks had the experience that Stan Mark was a tough task-master as the MF foreman, and mine was certainly no different. As I said earlier, as a rule, if you did your job things were generally cool on the band.
There was one experience I had that really stuck in my mind in working with Stan. At one point in my first tour, I had a chop problem. I'm not sure how it happened (chapping, a shaving nick, whatever... but one day near Detroit I developed a large pimple on my chops right under where the top rim of the mouthpiece hits me. It was very uncomfortable and made it very tough to play the way you need to on Maynard's band. In short, I was going to be a mess for a couple of days.
I thought my days were numbered. I felt that I was going to be fired. I did the best I could to get ready for the gig, but it was clear something was wrong. As was bound to happen, Stan got wind of it before the gig.
I was stunned at his reaction. While brusque, he was very supportive! He told me to take it easy for a couple of days and to close in on the mic as much as possible on concerts so I wouldn’t over-work my chops on the gig. He also insisted that I simply mime the required high notes on the end of Hey Jude and actually not play. He covered my notes for me. He insisted that I do this till I was absolutely certain that things had healed up. He was actually, in his own way very kind to me during this disturbing couple of days.
I recovered quickly and had a great tour subsequently. To the best of my knowledge, Stan NEVER bad-mouthed me (spreading the word that I was the kind of player who folds under pressure or anything like that). He was a trumpet-professional gentleman about the whole matter, and I am grateful for his handling of the situation. It impressed me, to say the least.
We went to Japan for about three weeks. This was one of the more memorable experiences I had. The Japanese loved American jazz and they LOVED Maynard! Also, I found the Japanese people to be extremely nice. The big cities were incredibly safe. Tokyo has a denser population than New York City, and yet I could get lost (and did on a couple of occasions) in the "seediest" neighborhoods (seedy by Japanese standards was downright clean - there really were no truly bad areas that I could find, not that I was looking) and feel completely safe.
I did like to try to practice in hotels on the road, but with a roommate and neighbors, even practice mutes didn't always work. This was particularly a problem in Japan as the walls seemed thinner.
One day, in Tokyo, I wanted to practice. It was a day off. I decided to take my horn and take a nice walk to a nearby park I had seen from my room. It looked larger than Lincoln Park in Chicago, so I figured I could steal away to some remote corner and practice. I walked a couple of miles and found a huge tree at the far end of the park over a little hill. It seemed to be completely removed from any homes or apartments. I sat down, leaning up against the tree, took my horn out and just started practicing. It was very peaceful and relaxing.
After about a half-hour or so I had this odd feeling I was being watched - not alone any more. It's strange, to say that. I've heard of folks having that feeling and dismissed it. However, it is a real sensation. In any case, I put my horn down and turned around and there was somewhere between 6 to 10 young Japanese men standing there just staring at me. They were very casually dressed - almost sloppy. Now, keep in mind, I’m from Chicago. Being alone in a deserted corner of Lincoln Park or Grant Park with ten young guys bearing down on you like that can inspire, well, concern.
They approached me and I stood up and mustered a smile and a feeble "Hello, how ya doin!" One of the young men spoke some broken English. The first words out of his mouth were, "Are you with Maynard Ferguson?" Relieved, I said yes. It turned out that, just over the hill, was a dorm for Sophia University in Tokyo. I wasn't as far from population as I thought (come to think of it, it is hard to get away from population in Tokyo!).
Also, these guys were with the music department and played in the big band in their school. They asked me if I would come to their band room and give a clinic on trumpet technique. I immediately agreed. They called an impromptu rehearsal with their class so that I could give a lecture. In addition to this, they asked if an English class could sit in to listen to my pronunciation and accent (rather a Midwestern US twinge, I must add). This I also agreed to.
It turned out to be an extraordinarily nice time. What an amazing and unifying thing is music. I made sure to get a picture of the event. This unique event really touched me. It is one of the things that still gives me a bit of a "road-wish," now and then.
Nick Drozdoff's Trumpet Clinic Tips
After leaving Maynard's band, Nick studied with a variety of different teachers including:
Adolph Herseth (one lesson - memorable); Carmine Caruso; Jerry Callet
Bruce Briney (while working on his Masters of Music); Channing Philbrick (also while working on his Masters) and Bobby Shew (a couple of lessons when he was in town doing clinics and concerts).
Says Nick, "What has evolved into my current method and system of practice is the aggregate effect of the significant points each of my teachers had to offer. This list might contrast those of some others, but all of my learning is impacted by my science and engineering background. Here is a list of significant bullet points. I have many more details outlined in my book, "How To Practice."
Practice softly! I would estimate that at least 85% of my practice is at mp or softer.
Fragment your practice time. Never play more than 20 minute to a half hour segments.
Try to "kill two birds with one stone" in all you do when practicing. For example, I do all of my jazz scales double or triple tongued to keep my legit skills tight while working on my jazz skills. Also by doing them softly, I enhance my range and endurance.
Don't assume that "air" is the sole solution to all trumpet challenges. The solution to trumpet challenges is a symbiotic combination of air, chops, tongue, etc.
If you hit a snag, slow down!
Don't forget the lip aperture rules: loud playing - big hole; soft playing - small hole; low notes - big hole; high notes - small hole. You need to mater a continuum.
For more, please see my books of trumpet playing.
Nick recommends the following trumpet method books Walt Johnson - Double High C in Ten Minutes; Trumpet Secrets by Callet/Civelletti; James Stamp System of Warm Ups and Routines; Musical Calisthenics for Brass by Carmine Caruso and look into the works of Bob O'Dneal and Clint "Pops" McLaughlin.
Nick teaches private trumpet lessons; online trumpet lessons; conducts master trumpet clinics as well as lectures. See his website page Nick Drozdoff Trumpet Lessons for details.
Nick states that he uses the following trumpets and mouthpieces - Bb Trumpets:
New York Trumpet Company Stage 1 California Light; New York Trumpet Company Broadway Model; Mouthpieces - Wedge 3CC on a W25L/WTL BB; Wedge 5FC on the same BB; Asymmetric Lead Model 342.
Nick Drozdoff On Breathing. Nick has many educational videos displayed on YouTube.com as well as on his website NickDrozdoff.com.
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