Word: tubaman
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...graceful hands which seem to mold every phrase of the music that is played. The orchestramen seemed like cogs in a magic wheel, but within the Orchestra each player has an important identity. Violinist Alexander Hilsberg is envied for his $35,000 Guarnerius which once belonged to Jan Kubelik. Tubaman Philip Donatelli is the orchestra's winemaker, father of seven daughters. Two Spanish Torellos play in the double-bass section. Father Anton is an oldster in the Orchestra. His son Carl is there to follow in his footsteps. Trumpeter Saul Caston is conducting in Evansville, Phoenix and Holdrege...
Cincinnati seems to be the seat of tuba experiments. Tubaman James Austin Houston who plays in radio station WLW has a bellows contraption called an aerophor attached to his instrument (TIME, Dec. 14, 1931). He pumps it with his foot to shoot auxiliary air up through a hose into his mouth where, by a special facial technique, he shoots it back into the instrument. Tubaman Houston is puny. His aerophor is purely a lung-saving device. William Bell's invention is not for weak tubamen. It does the work of two tubas-a double bass and a baritone...
...Tubaman Bell deftly shifted his instrument about this week, blew first on one mouthpiece and then on the other, getting a four-octave range as against the two and a half octaves possible on a normal tuba. Two tubamen can play on Bell's instrument at the same time but they would have to be ambidextrous to avoid interference on the single set of valves...
...Cincinnati's radio station WLW there works a smallish, bespectacled man of 55 who plays the great tuba without ever huffing, puffing or straining himself red for breath. He is James Austin Houston, only U.S. tubaman who, despite mediocre diaphragm development, can perfectly sustain a note for 20 measures, make tuba music which could be represented graphically by a long, unbroken line instead of by telegraphic dots and dashes. Last week Tubaman Houston's secret became known: He uses a German wind-saving contrivance called an "aerophor" which cost...
...Tubaman Houston lets his right foot do some of the work that ordinarily requires mighty chest expansion, highly developed breath control. His foot, instead of idly marking time, operates a bellows which shoots auxiliary air up through a tube into his mouth. That the air may reach the mouth at lung temperature and humidity, the tube passes through a small tank of water heated by an electric light bulb. Mr. Houston admits that the aerophor presents its difficulties. It takes a big mouth to hold the forked tube on either side of the big tuba mouthpiece, a special facial-muscle...