This morning, somebody (David) sent me a link to a video that shows how Bach trumpets are made. As you may know from my equipment page, I play a Bach Model 37 trumpet. Here's the link to WATCH THE MOVIE... After the window opens, click the "Click to view" link. WARNING! WARNING! This movie is long, features cheesy background music, eighties-era fashion and hair styles (although it was apparently made in 1993!), and could quite possibly bore you non-trumpeters to death (pun intended). It does, however, reveal Bach's closely-held secret to pristine valves: lard oil!

As a reward for sitting through the Bach movie, here are a few of the MANY jazz trumpet clips you can watch on YouTube. They're all great examples of how trumpets SHOULD be played...

To begin, here's an awesome video of Freddie Hubbard from 1965. There's lots of great outside playing in this solo, especially in the first few choruses.

Here's the king of kool, Miles Davis, playing Footprints in 1967 with a few decent up-and-commers (ha!). I swear, when Miles plays it sounds like a totally different instrument.

Speaking of sounding like a different instrument, here's one of my top five favorite trumpeters, Don Cherry, playing a full-size trumpet instead of the pocket trumpet he typically played.

Here's one of the best players from my generation, Nichlas Payton, from 2003.

And, one more modern-day trumpeter, the great Dave Douglas, from 2003.