Preview: Trumpet and Flugelhorn Player Leads Area Stars

Thursday, trumpeter and flugelhorn player Steve Horowitz leads a quartet of Larry Ham, piano; Rich Syracuse, bass; and Cliff Brucker, drums. Horowitz says Brucker also assembled the rhythm section, modestly adding, “They all have resumes about a mile long and mine is maybe a few feet by comparison.”

Steve Horowitz holding trumpet; flugelhorn at left. Photo supplied
Ham played with Lionel Hampton and Illinois Jacquet and recently joined Brucker’s band Full Circle. Brucker also leads the BWC Jazz Orchestra, and Syracuse played for decades with piano giant Lee Shaw. Horowitz also plays with Gypsy jazz bands Gadjo and Helderberg Hot Club and occasionally with the Hot Club of Saratoga. He was the only trumpeter among 250 players at Northampton’s guitar-dominated Django in June festival of workshops and jam sessions.

Jam sessions were his entree into the area jazz scene for the Long Island native who came to SUNY Albany to study computer science. Here he met many players including saxophonist Cliff Lyons, drummer Mark Foster, bassist Otto Gardner, pianist Ray Rettig and guitarist Sam Farkas. He played some with Don Dworkin’s Doc Scanlon’s Rhythm Boys and often saw saxophone hero Nick Brignola. 

Trumpeter Mike Canonico particularly inspired Horowitz who hails the late master as “one of my favorite trumpet players and a major influence.” Horowitz calls Canonico “a complete player…with a very strong upper register and a wonderful tone, a very melodic improviser.”

It all began when a music teacher told Horowitz’s parents their 10 year old has perfect pitch and recommended lessons. He studied trumpet technique systematically, like the software engineer he later became. On “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” from one of his father’s 40s and 50s Latin jazz records, for example, he heard a trumpeter bend a note and tried for years to learn the trick, with the third valve and a flexible lip.

Returning here after his work with IBM in Poughkeepsie ended, Horowitz again found mentors and friends in jam sessions, including Peg and Bill Delaney and Cliff Brucker. “I was just having fun going to wherever the jam sessions were.”

He learned by listening and playing; inspired first by assertive high-register masters Maynard Ferguson and Freddy Hubbard before emulating melodic players Warren Vache, Chet Baker, Harry James, Ruby Braff and Roy Hargrove – especially when Hargrove played flugelhorn. 

Horowitz calls flugelhorn his “secret weapon.” When he took his used flugelhorn to a jam session the same day he bought it, fellow players asked, “Where have you been hiding that?” Horowitz recalls, “They said, ‘More flugelhorn, less trumpet!’”

Horowitz says the flugelhorn “has a naturally forgiving, softer sound,” and will play flugelhorn, the larger, lower cousin to the trumpet, on about half the tunes Thursday at Jazz on Jay.

“The simpler I can keep it, on flugelhorn, the better,” he says. More generally, he says of his all-standards program, “I like to keep things relatively short so we can fit a few extra tunes into the hour and half.” 

Jazz on Jay free concerts are noon to 1:30 p.m. at Jay Square, the new park space opposite Schenectady City Hall. The rain site is Robb Alley at Proctors, 432 State St. Seating is provided indoors at Robb Alley, but patrons are invited to bring their own seating and refreshments to Jay Square.

Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District and sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, The Schenectady Foundation, Price Chopper/Market 32, MVP Health Care, Schenectady County, Schenectady City Hall, and Proctors Collaborative. This blog is a series media sponsor.