New Brass Ensemble a Role Model for Blacks

It is estimated that there are no more than about 70 blacks in the United States and Canada who earn their livings principally by playing classical music. The New Brass Ensemble, a group of five black musicians who will visit Pomona College today for a concert at Little Bridges Hall, is working hard to change that situation.

“Young blacks need positive role models,” noted Bob Watt during a conversation at his Mar Vista home. Indeed, the relative dearth of blacks occupying chairs in major American orchestras makes it difficult for young black musicians to see classical music as a realistic career choice.

“When you think of a black person playing music, you think of him playing jazz or pop, which is fine, but people are always curious to see black persons who play classical music,” said Watt. Although the Los Angeles Philharmonic has four black musicians, other orchestras lag behind: “I can’t thing of any other major orchestra that has more than one black,” he added.

The members of the New Brass Ensemble hope that, as more and more people see and hear them, what is now regarded as unusual will soon become what is expected. A chamber ensemble such as theirs, remarks Watt, “is unique in the classical music world. It is something whose time has come.”

Trumpeter James Tinsley, who had appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was 22, formed the ensemble two years ago. Watt, who had been Tinsley’s college roommate, is familiar to Los Angeles audiences as the Philharmonic’s assistant principal hornist for the last 18 years.

Today, not surprisingly, leaders in the black educational and cultural communities have eagerly sought out the ensemble. Later this month, the quintet will tour the East Coast, performing in the Harlem School of the Arts’ Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert Series, and concluding with an appearance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, to be attended by some of the most prominent leaders in Washington’s black community.

“During February, which is Black History Month, we’re very popular,” says Watt. “We’re already booked for next February.”

Arranging a concert tour is no simple matter, as all members of New Brass have busy performing schedules: Tinsley and trombonist Gordon Simms in Montreal, trumpeter Leonard Foy in Tennessee, tubist Tony Underwood in New Jersey and Watt in Los Angeles.

Watt recalls fondly the group’s residence in Lieksa, a small Finnish city nearly 300 miles northeast of Helsinki. Each July the city holds a festival called Lieksa Brass Week. “Since the Finns are indoors all winter, they go crazy in the summertime. The whole city showed up for our concerts.”

The players made a number of contacts, many of which proved valuable; they have been able to arrange a three-week tour of Finland this summer, which will be followed by a weeklong series of performances at Denmark’s Tivoli Festival Hall. The quintet was also featured in a television program about Lieksa Brass Week, which was broadcast in much of Finland and Sweden.

The Finnish sojourn also spurred one of the country’s composers to write a work for them, which is now being completed. The ensemble’s repertory covers a wide range, from the works of Claude Le Jeune and and Giles Farnaby to music by Fats Waller and Duke Ellington.

The horn player exudes visible enthusiasm in the group’s future, which certainly looks bright. A full-length television documentary on the group is now being produced, and the invitations have grown so numerous that they are looking for a professional manager.

The message they bring to young blacks is summed up by Watt: “If you want to do something--dance as a ballerina, serve in the Senate or play classical music--you can do it, if you apply yourself. Here we are--we’re playing classical music; we’re an organization, a black institution. And that goes a long way in certain parts of America.”