TromboneChat

It seems that Mr Minick made more than one style of valve as this , not the other above is the one with the straight section.

BellEnd

Hi Forum,

Please allow me jumping in here. I’m a community musician in CA. I have a few pieces of memory with Larry Minick, and wanted to share (as a natural occurrence when getting old) with you on this forum. Hope this is an appropriate post.

I knew the legendary name from my youth. I learned from a music store in Santa Barbara that Minick lived in Cambria, so decided to pay him a visit. I guess I was young and rude not making an appointment with him but, he was a bit scaring looking at first, he welcomed me warmly. He showed me his workshop. This photo was taken on April 6, 1995 upon my first visit. I made my second visit on September 9, 1996.
I told him I had been having hard time finding a mouthpiece for my 88H. I was a 5GS user and using an adaptor to make it (std shank) fit to the Conn shank. I was lucky; he offered me one that he made and I bought it immediately from him in this workshop. He had a dozen of it; they looked like just came back from plating. The mouthpiece feels like a small tuba mouthpiece, noticeably larger. The rim shape is somewhat similar to 5GS but a bit thinner.
This alto trombone was at a music shop in Osaka, Japan when I accidentally stopped by during a trip. It was 1999. The shopkeeper told me that Minick had passed away, I didn’t know, and I convinced myself that I had to buy this horn. A lot later I asked the Santa Barbara shop to make a slight change in its slide brace, because I really want to play the horn rather than hanging it on a wall. It plays very nice, sounds like a trumpet. It was somewhere in Mendelssohn’s symphony that the alto plays a long major third chord in f with a trumpet; I can’t forget that thrilling sound. This alto really bridges between trombones and trumpets.
Thank you for reading.

Noshero wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:40 am Hi Forum,

Please allow me jumping in here...

Thanks for jumping in! Awesome hearing some first hand experiences!

Noshero wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:40 amI told him I had been having hard time finding a mouthpiece for my 88H. I was a 5GS user and using an adaptor to make it (std shank) fit to the Conn shank. I was lucky; he offered me one that he made and I bought it immediately from him in this workshop. He had a dozen of it; they looked like just came back from plating. The mouthpiece feels like a small tuba mouthpiece, noticeably larger. The rim shape is somewhat similar to 5GS but a bit thinner.

Thank you so much for sharing that! Minick really did a lot, and it is such a shame that we lost him so soon. I'm actually quite in love with a lot of his MPC designs, and think it's great that Ferguson music has been making some very good replicas.

Noshero wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:40 am Hi Forum,

Please allow me jumping in here.

Wow! One of the best posts I've ever read. Thanks!

Noshero,

Thanks for sharing that with the TF community. It brings a human element to someone who has become (almost) legendary.

A question out of curiosity: Is the mouthpiece you have similar to the one Minick made for Christian Lindberg when he had some work done on his Conn trombone(s)?

Hi Kbiggs, sorry, I’m not very sure if I can answer right. A Lindberg model that I know had a triangular outer shape that came with a black silicone molded case. Many years ago I had one. I don’t know if Minick designed that one, but is this the one you are talking about? My impression was the rim was a little too round so I didn’t like it much. And, if I remember correctly, it was much smaller than this Minick made that I have today. So I’d say the triangular Lindberg model and this Minick made are rather dissimilar.

I've asked in the past about the evolution of the Lindberg mouthpiece. The Minick Lindberg mouthpiece was larger than the current 5CL, and had a wider rim profile. It was a one off, made for him while he was studying in LA. He already had a Minick 88H and one off mouthpiece by the time his second album, the Virtuoso Trombone, came out and he used that setup on that album and a couple of his other very early albums.

When he started experimenting with new mouthpieces, he was doing hundreds of recitals and concerts per year, and he had a pretty weird mouthpiece called the 1CL which was basically built around an attempt to build as much playing endurance into the equipment as possible -- it had the shallowest cup and smallest throat of the large bore CL mouthpieces. The rim wasn't quite the weird Lindberg rim you get on the 5CL, but was in between that and a round Bach profile -- wider profile than the 5CL and smaller cup diameter. Probably as close to the Minick rim as we'll get. I actually had a 1CL I got from a music store that was liquidating, and Christian told me that there has only been a few prototypes made and sent out as promo/tester items to see if there was a market for CL mouthpieces. He was really surprised that they still existed. I sold it to someone on the old forum. Here's what it looked like:
Then the series evolved from there. He got his endurance but not the volume of sound he needed for some of the new concertos that were being written. They kept the same blank, and by widening the cup slightly the rim profile got thinner. The 5CL is a slightly deeper cup. The 4CL is deeper still, with the huge throat. One of the loudest mouthpieces I've ever tried. It's all good stuff, but going all the way back to Minick it was designed for one particular person with one very particular set of goals, not the last of which was "how can I play for as long as possible without getting tired and missing any notes?" Especially at the start of his career, missed notes could have ended his career right then and there, and chopping out would have been the end.

Harrison,
Thanks for the Lindberg mouthpiece history. Makes sense.

As you once did, I have played (and enjoyed) the Lindberg 5CL mouthpiece. The 4CL, with its deeper cup and large (7.40mm) throat, does not work so well for me. I'm O.K. with the rims on these pieces – but I'm not a full-time pro.

Thank you Harrison for the CL mouthpiece story. Very nice learning. I wonder which model the one I bought was.

I continued to dig out more Minick photos. It was a film camera; that was one reason why I had only a few photos taken. At that time I didn’t imagine the day like today ever come where the world shares pictures like this way. Still for years I hesitated to post these pictures for possible privacy concerns. But now, I guess it’s alright as these pictures can be pieces of historical evidence of the legend. Yeah, please don’t look at me, look at his workshop. Below are from April 1995.

Below are from Sep 1996. He showed me the tiny trombones stored in a wooden box. You see a trayful of mouthpieces in the other photo. A little reflection on the window, the red-roof vintage pickup truck was what he drove, I think.
A bit about myself. I’m with a community orchestra called the Nova Vista Symphony in the Bay Area. We performed nothing for the last year and half as everybody else. My bad news is I had to extract two front upper teeth during COVID and now got a bridge placed in. It’s been an interesting experience and journey to recover the place where I (my embouchure) was.

Noshero wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 1:27 pm Thank you Harrison for the CL mouthpiece story. Very nice learning. I wonder which model the one I bought was.

I continued to dig out more Minick photos. It was a film camera; that was one reason why I had only a few photos taken. At that time I didn’t imagine the day like today ever come where the world shares pictures like this way. Still for years I hesitated to post these pictures for possible privacy concerns. But now, I guess it’s alright as these pictures can be pieces of historical evidence of the legend. Yeah, please don’t look at me, look at his workshop. Below are from April 1995.

This photo you shared looks as though he had a Williams 10 valve section hanging on his wall you can see that the spacing on the F tubing is further apart than the 9.

It was very interesting reading all of this great information about Larry Minick. I really appreciate all of the great photos of the Minick shop. Spending all of my days living in NW and SW Ohio, I never got to actually meet him in person. He did work on two of my favorite bass trombones. My first bass trombone he modified was a Holton TR 180, which I selected on a trip to Elkhorn WI. This was an early TR-180, with the large ball and socket linkage. They had to make a D-slide for me, as at that time it was an option. It came supplied with an E slide on the second valve. That horn made a couple of trips back to Elkhorn, for work like conversion to that Teflon linkage and the Glantz trigger. I also had my hand slide modified to a George Roberts leadpipe, when George endorsed with Holton for a short time.

After many frustrating months of playing on the Glantz/Haney "Magicbar Trigger, this is when Larry Minick received my bell section for some work. I had Larry do a split-trigger conversion for me, along with an open wrap D-slide, to replace that Holton D-slide which was wrapped tighter than a pretzel! I talked with Larry several times, and he was always pleasant to me. Sadly, I made one of those huge mistakes many of us make, and I sold the horn! I never had Larry put an open F-attachment on this TR-180.

I had picked up a very nice Conn Elkhart 62H, used. I played it stock, for a couple of years; an, it must have been in the 1980's I called Larry and got some prices for work on that bass trombone, I sent it to Cambria, where Larry did an open wrap F-attachment, open wrap D-Slide, new Conn inner slide tubes (this has kept this slide in perfect condition for many years!) and pulled the Remington shank leadpipe and sent me removeable "C" and "L" pipes made with standard Bach shank tapers. I really never minded the string/roller side-by-side lever and never had Larry split the triggers.

I switched to a Greenhoe-Bach 50b in the early 2000's and really got used to the split triggers on the Greenhoe valve section. When the ITF was held at UNT, years ago, I took my 62H with me, met Eric Swanson, and he converted it to split triggers.

BTW, I remember from the old TTF some conversations with the late Mike Suter. I had not realized that his wife worked in Larry's shop, at one time. Anybody know her name or any information about how long she might have worked for Larry?

Thank you for your comments. I feel glad to have shared these pictures. Nice to learn about the Williams trombones (I didn't know those). Also good to know more of Minick's work.

Noshero wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 1:27 pm Thank you Harrison for the CL mouthpiece story. Very nice learning. I wonder which model the one I bought was.

I continued to dig out more Minick photos. It was a film camera; that was one reason why I had only a few photos taken. At that time I didn’t imagine the day like today ever come where the world shares pictures like this way. Still for years I hesitated to post these pictures for possible privacy concerns. But now, I guess it’s alright as these pictures can be pieces of historical evidence of the legend. Yeah, please don’t look at me, look at his workshop. Below are from April 1995.

Now THAT'S a shop!!!!! Crap all over the place, but I'll bet he knew exactly where everything and anything was!!
I wonder what that contraption with the car air filter was?

Thanks for the pics and discussion Noshero!!!

Bonearzt, glad you liked it. I don't know exactly why an air filter had to be there, but I guess Minick worked on his car. He must liked American classics as his pickup was one of those, nice and shiny. I'm not into American classics so I can't tell which make and model this pickup was. The Civic on the right was mine.

Noshero wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:46 am Bonearzt, glad you liked it. I don't know exactly why an air filter had to be there, but I guess Minick worked on his car. He must liked American classics as his pickup was one of those, nice and shiny. I'm not into American classics so I can't tell which make and model this pickup was. The Civic on the right was mine.

I SOO wish I could have met him!! I'm DEFINITELY envious of your interaction!!

Hard to tell what model truck, but seeing that it's similar in height to your Honda, maybe an El Camino or Fairlane?

Eric,

From 1957 to 1979, Ford manufactured a half Ford passenger car half pick-up and called it a Ford Ranchero. One of my high school buddy's dad used one in his business, as a building contractor. That would have been an early model probably made in the late 1950's when I was a high schooler. Kind of dates me, doesn't it, Eric?

As I recall, the Ford Ranchero was sort of a Ford Falcon (bench seat in front cab), with a cargo bed behind. 6-cylinder engine. Not a great vehicle, but a pretty popular inexpensive alternate to a pickup truck when there were no small pickups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranchero

Posaunus wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:40 pm As I recall, the Ford Ranchero was sort of a Ford Falcon (bench seat in front cab), with a cargo bed behind. 6-cylinder engine. Not a great vehicle, but a pretty popular inexpensive alternate to a pickup truck when there were no small pickups.

Not just sixes; my wife had a classic '64 Ranchero with a 260 V8 and a four speed manual transmission. Pretty much the closest thing you'd ever find to a Mustang pickup. Sadly, it was stolen and stripped many years ago.

@Noshero thanks for posting your wonderful experiences.
I thought I would share the below.
I have had this mouthpiece for close to 30 years.
I have no idea how I originally acquired it only once I played it, it became my favorite
Back then I had it replated in Rhodium (which I had redone a few years ago and as may be seen in the picture, probably will need to be done again) and played it all through college.
It measures at about a 7C.
I do not play it much now since with age, things tend to spread out and I find bigger mouthpieces more comfortable now.

Hi Vegastokc,

Beautiful example. It looks the outline copies that of Bach’s. Glad you enjoyed my posts also. I didn’t realize until receiving all these comments that meeting Minick in person was such an honor. Innocence of youth pays off. Also, thank you for comments about the truck. I’m into old cars but not very familiar with American classics. Good to know Ranchero. Happy playing & driving!