Sandy Schaefer

Percussion: Jazz & Concert

This is the retirement home of Dr. G. W. Sandy Schaefer formerly a professor at Chadron State College, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and California State University Fresno.

Trumpet/Fluegel Horn

Louis Armstrong is the beginning place for jazz trumpet. His rhythmic and melodic conception changed the way future musicians played. Most Americans, because of the movies, remember him for singing the song What A Wonderful World. Jazz musicians knew him as an earth-changing trumpet player and singer.

West End Blues: This famous recording by Louis (Louie) “Satchmo” Armstrong, from 1927 begins with a cadenza (yes, and people study that cadenza) that forms the introduction to the standard 12 Bar Blues.

Dinah: Louis Armstrong is also a starting point for scat singing. By 1933, Louis Armstrong had become the most important musician in New Orleans Jazz (Dixieland or Traditional Jazz) and styles were changing favoring larger bands. This remarkable video is from his 1933 European tour shows Louis performing as a solo artist with a backup band, much like Benny Goodman and many other bands leaders to follow.

Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie, along with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, altered the approach to improvisation to begin the Bebop Period in the early 1940s. This video, Hot House, is from an early 1952 TV show features both Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

Like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy was also sang Bebop tunes with entertainment value like Oop Bop Sh-Bam. Bebop was really the music of smaller combos, but Dizzy led a big band for a short time. For professional musicians, the size of the band is more a function of the size of the budget.

Clark Terry

Clark Terry was a big band trumpet player in the late 1940s (and a big influence on Miles Davis) who emerged as a gifted soloist/technician and singer. During my high school years, Clark Terry was a member of the Tonight Show Band…..yes, the same show was on back then and had a jazz big band.

Maynard Ferguson

Maynard Ferguson emerged during the same time period as a member of the Stan Kenton Band. Maynard became known as a high note specialist and became a benchmark for future lead trumpet players. This recording has no video (sorry), but I’ve loved this recording since my high school years.