!earshot Top 200 of 2021

In a Sentimental Mood with Ian McDougall

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IM: No, I got the golden handshake, two and half—three years ago and I’m just continuing on now as a freelance performer, player, arranger, composer and so forth and I try to put out the odd record from time to time. I’m finished at UVIC although I’m teaching a couple of students just to help them out, right now. I ended up—although the jazz program, there isn’t really all that big an it never go the point where I really would like it to have been--so I ended up being a trombone teacher who also conducted a big band—which was perfectly fine with me, because I really like working with individual trombone players and trying to make them come up to standard and so forth. Over the years I met a heck of lot of really good guys and girls that I’ve been lucky enough to work with.

JD: Are there any names that I might recognize?

IM: Oh, yes. There’s the 1st trombone player in the Toronto Symphony, Gordon Wolfe; and Rob Stone. I still get a kick out of playing lead trombone in a really good big band. He’s a fantastic Canadian jazz player. I taught a wonderful player from Kamloops. His name is Nathan O’Neal and he’s studying at McGill University. There are several other players who are in different orchestras. I’ve been quite successful actually. I’m just a trombone teacher, not a jazz trombone teacher. I like to emphasize that fact. People often call me “that jazz trombone player,” but I like to be called a trombone player who plays jazz and many other things as well. I’m pretty eclectic, I think.

JD: Speaking of the trombone, Branford Marsalis called the trombone “a crappy instrument.” What do you have to say to that?

IM: I don’t know what the context was. If I knew the context I’d be able to comment a little bit more. It is unfortunate that it was Branford, because I have a great deal of respect for him as a musician, a player, one of my favourite players, as a matter of fact, in some cases. If you said his brother (Wynton) I might have had some heavier comments to make, but in a sense, the trombone is a crappy instrument, because it’s crappy to play—it’s really hard to play. It’s a hell of lot harder that pressing a button on a saxophone, Brandford! I’ll tell you that!

JD: (laughs) Ya, I think so. That was pretty good.

IM: Let me complete that. When the only thing you have to do to play an octave is press a button! There you go. That’ll do it.

JD: Oh, there’s one more thing that I wanted to ask you. Campbell Ryga was recently in town and he told us that on of the other well-known trombone players, Dave Robbins, had just passed away. Did you know Dave very well?

IM: I knew Dave extremely well. I worked with him a lot and we played together a lot. Recently, at the age of 80, we played with Dave, when he conducted the band at a jazz festival. I did a CD with Dave, recently, called Trombones Forever. We are going to play some of these tunes at his memorial service. Dave was a very fine player and a very fine writer, orchestrator, composer and just a wonderful, fantastic musician, whose enthusiasm really was one of his major assets. He just couldn’t get enough of music or the trombone. He just loved the trombone. I first saw Dave in the mid 50s on CBC television, when I was just a kid—about 15 or 16. I first worked with Dave in 1962 when I came back from England, after being there for a couple of years. I came back to Vancouver and lived there for 11 years and I worked with Dave, probably hundreds and hundreds of times. I would venture to say, maybe even, a thousand times as the CBC was very busy then. We also had various other gigs. Dave was a very fine trombone player and a great guy—just a stupendous musician!

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