TromboneChat

Hi everyone! I noticed that Quinn the Eskimo, a Seattle-area music store that does a lot of Ebay business, has been posting numerous modular bass trombone bells for sale lately. I have been thinking about replacing the 10.5 inch bell on one of my Bach 50s with a 9.5 bell, so I gave them a call. I ended up asking a lot of questions, haggling a little bit and buying one of the bells......another project to look forward to!

In my discussion with the sales person, it was mentioned that the bells (I think it was more than a dozen when they first arrived) were from the estate of Jim Berman. After snooping in some old Trombone Forum files, I found out that Jim Berman was a bass trombonist in the Miami area for many years and he passed away in 2019. RIP Jim.

However, my investigation just left me with more questions:

*What kind of player was Jim Berman.....orchestral, big band, multi-purpose free-lance? Was he a teacher?

*Why did Jim have so many high-end modular bass trombone bells? Did he love to experiment with equipment? Was he a brass technician?

*Many of the bells have no brand markings on them. Does anyone know who made those "brand-less" bells for Jim?

A brief little bit here from when he passed

https://trombonechat.com/viewtopic.php?t=10793

Jim was pretty awesome, had some great gear conversations with him. Not sure if I bought more from him or sold more to him over the years. We had a lot of ‘you know, I always wanted to try _____’ trades when we saw something we were both into. I was wondering whose these were from, now this makes perfect sense.

Was tempted to grab one for a project, I’d have to check to make sure it wasn’t one I sold to him that I didn’t want.

Cheers,
Andy

Was he only a musician, or did he tinker with equipment as well? Any idea where the brand-less bells came from?

Ohhh that makes sense. I was wondering who has such an impressive collection of bells. There must have been $100k worth of bells on sale!

If an Olds comes up for sale with a J bend, you may well have an old J bend that I had originally intended on making a "no tuning" bass trombone out of but couldn't justify the expense of. I sold it to him in 2017. He said he was going to put it on an Olds bass in some capacity.

I'm not sure I ever met Jim face to face, but I also corresponded with him and bought and sold mouthpieces with him (and maybe some other stuff; I don't remember for sure).

I don't think he was tech; I think he was a player - freelance, more or less orchestral - who liked to experiment with equipment. He liked dependent Thayer valves. Some if not most of those no-name bells were Osmun or Osmun/Shires from the early 90s.

At that time the conventional wisdom was that Bach bells were too light for orchestral playing, so a lot of Bach basses were getting bell transplants along with their Thayer conversions. Before he was spinning bells for his own company, Steve Shires was working at Osmun Brass in their Belmont, MA store, doing custom work which often included buying raw bells from parts suppliers and tweaking them to make them MORE AWESOME - annealing, sanding to thin them a bit in certain parts of the taper, etc. Steve then left Osmun to do sales and design work at Edwards, then went back to Osmun for a bit, then started his own company. For a few years Jim Becker at Osmun continued to do some custom bell work like Steve had done. I had one of those for a while, though it was such a tank I didn't play it much; I much preferred the response of my original gold brass Bach bell.

Crazy4Tbone86 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 7:37 pm Was he only a musician, or did he tinker with equipment as well? Any idea where the brand-less bells came from?

Agree with Gabe, I don't think he did his own work, though I honestly don't know that. The bells could be from anywhere. Osmun, Minick, the guy in Canada that was making some, other customs, un marked seconds from manufacturers (Conn and Holton pre-Selmer), Imports, etc.. I would put no bounds on where he would have accumulated pieces from. They did seem mostly on the heavier, 90's side; that's why I have not put myself in the market for any of them at this time...

Cheers,
Andy

I knew Jim. Met him back in the 80's. We were both good friends with my teacher Art Sares. I didn't see him a lot, because I was away a lot, and had moved to central Florida. Jim lived in south Florida. We played a few gigs together before he died. A big band, and a church gig. He was definitely more of an orchestral player. For sure not a technition. I am, and when I was working at a shop in West Palm Beach, he would pop in and say hi, so I saw him not long before he died. He was an equipment geek like a lot of us. The last thing he told me he was interested in finding was a good used King 3B+. He was a nice person.

Being from South Florida, I met Jim a few times and bought a few things from him. He was a great guy and seemed to have an endless amount of good stories. He sold me a Minick bass trombone bell that is very unique and awesome. He had tons of horns and parts in his home. He told me that he used to work in the Schilke factory with Steve Shires, so he had a great supply of Shires parts and horns. He would buy and sell just about everything and ship worldwide (Last time I spoke with him he had sold a 10.5 inch Bach bell to the bass trombonist in the Moscow Phil, if I remember correctly. I only knew him for 3 or 4 years but was very saddened to hear of his passing. Great player too.

Jim was a great guy. I sold him many of my spare Edwards parts, and super easy to work with. He is definitely missed. Rest easy.