The Instrument You Trust from the Name You Trust
 

By Arra Moon
Staff Writer for "Big Bear Life"
Reprinted by permission of Big Bear Life newspaper Feb. 11, 1995 issue

Claude Gordon. Virtuoso of the trumpet, cornet and accordion, band leader, solo performer, premier educator in the field, author and authority extraordinaire. He is considered one of the greatest if not THE greatest master of the trumpet in this century, and he lives in retirement in Big Bear Valley, quietly and happily, with the memories of his fame and glory. He is still sought after, by telephone and mail, by the myriad of students, and acquaintances and close friends in the world of music which will never forget "Claude Gordon, His Trumpet, and His Band". Music is-and was-the love of his life, second only to his deep convictions in which he ministered in Kingdom Halls, as a Jehovah's Witness at the same time he toured, and taught, as the darling of the 50's Big Band era.

Claude was bom in Helena, Mont., in 1916, into an all musical family. By profession, his father was a dental surgeon, but, by avocation, was an accomplished musician. His mother was a concert pianist with whom his father, along with his several brothers and sisters, all instrumentalists, formed a band which performed for years on Station KFBB in Great Falls where the family had moved shortly after Claude's ninth birthday.

While Claude preferred the trumpet, a heart murmur in his youth caused his doctor to prohibit his playing it, and he took up the accordion, which he taught himself to play. In the picture of the family orchestra you'll see his Coronet. At age 16 Claude formed his first band, a group of school pals, which he called, "The Gordon Royal Eight." The band played at the famous "Mint Tavern" in Great Falls, of which the renown painter and sculptor, C.M. Russell, was a frequent customer and where his paintings once lined the walls.
 

In 1936, at age 20, Claude married his sweetheart, Jenny, and in pursuit of a burning desire to study under the greatest trumpet teacher of them all, called the "father of the trumpet", Herbert L. Clarke, who lived and taught in Long Beach, the Gordon's moved there. They had no money, and lived at first with a cousin of Jenny's, and Claude went to work for May Company Dept. Store, teaching and selling accordions, in order to pay for lessons with Clarke and buy groceries.

Claude said he and Jenny would occasionally "eat out" at Thrifty's Drug Store where they could buy a steak dinner for 45 cents-and split it. Clarke readily recognized Claude's talent and taught him well, later to adopt him as his protégé.

As I look over my notes, I am frustrated because I am writing a profile, not a book. However, Claude's biography is being written by Patty Gordon, Claude's second wife to whom he was married in 1990, but I am getting ahead of my story, brief as I must make it for "profile" style. I need to forget chronology

So rapid was Claude's rise in the music world that soon, in the 40's, he was performing for major studio orchestras in background music for such radio shows as "I Love Lucy," the "Lucky Strike Show," the "Maxwell House Show the "Dick Powell Show:' as well as "Amos and Andy," "Jack Benny" and "Gun Smoke," to name only a few of his engagements.

By the 1950's, Big Band style music was waning, giving over to rock and roll, be-bop, hard rock, et cetera. Not only did music change, but styles of dancing made a lot of people "wonder whether it was worth going out for an evening", wrote Neil Cowan, Gordon recording publicist, and in order to rally the fans of Big Bands in the battle, a great nationwide contest was conceived at which orchestras would provide their own entertainment as an accompaniment to the contest.

The Best New Band In America Contest was held at the Roseland Ballroom in New York and drew 183 top band contestants from across the nation. Who said the Big Band Era was over!

Claude's virtuoso trumpet performance with his band "The Gordon Clan" (their blazers were made of the Gordon clan tartan) assured them of a place among the finalists. When Herman Kenin, president of the American Federation of Music, stepped to the microphone and announced "Gordon's Clan" as the winner, "the fans went wild", wrote Cowan.

Claude's band was on a great roll of triumphs. He had played a full summer engagement at the Avalon Ballroom on Catalina, the first Big Band since WWII to play at the fabled casino. Later he would fill all of the dates at the Hollywood Palladium.

Upon winning the Big Band contest, the band was immediately signed by Warner Bros. Records and Claude insisted that the musicians whom he had taught and rehearsed for so long would be the musicians on the recording, whereas, ordinarily, only seasoned studio musicians would have made up the recording band. But this was Claude Gordon, loyal and certain of his decision.

The Gordon band toured the nation from one coast to the other, the Southern route being the most frequently booked, from Texas across to Florida. His Billy May arrangements were impeccably played and listeners and dancers were dazzled by Claude's "flights of musical fancy," delivered with disarming ease, and his leadership of his orchestra was of the highest standard of musical achievement. "He is one of the GREATS", wrote Cowan.

He was also teaching, consistently, and when the family (Jenny, Claude, and youngest son, Steven) moved to Big Bear in 1969, because it reminded them of Great Falls, Claude flew his own plane to his teaching studio in Encino. Additionally he had started summer Brass Camps for teaching, first near San Francisco, later at Idyllwild, and still later at La Sierra University, a branch of Loma Linda

University. Students flocked to them from all over the world. In 1992, La Sierra University awarded Claude an Honorary Doctorate of Music. He would hold these Brass Camps for 16 years.

Tragedy struck in the late 80's when Claude lost to death his wife, Jenny, in 1988, his elder son, Gary suffered a major heart attack prior to his mother's funeral, only to die a few weeks later, and both he and his youngest son, Steven, famed concert pianist, both contracted cancer, Gordon's in his throat, and Steven's diagnosed as lymphoma from which he died a year and a half later. Radiation literally "fried" Claude's throat, rendering him unable to ever play his beloved trumpet again. Even so, he continued to teach until late 1993, mostly at his Big Bear home. Claude had accrued 3,000 hours of piloting, flying to his studio and performance engagements.

In 1990, Claude married Patty, a lady whom he had known at his church, and who has to be one of the nicest and most beautiful of people who cares for Claude as she would a precious diamond. He is very frail, these days. Quadruple by-pass surgery in the early 80's had really been the beginning of the close of his active career.

His youngest son, Steven, following in the footsteps of his family heritage, became a renown concert pianist, making his debut in the Hollywood Bowl at age 9, later at 26, competing in the Tchaikovsky competitions in Moscow. He concertized, and won nearly every fabled prize at the keyboard as a solo pianist until his marriage to Nadya Cataldo, also a concert pianist, with whom he traveled and concertized as a duo-piano team. They graciously played for Big Bear once in our Community Concert Series. The Gordon's were the first to perform the complete works of Ravel for four hands, arranged by Steven. Steven died in 1990 at age 46. His elder brother, Gary, also an accomplished trumpeter, chose the business world as his profession, installing acoustical tiles for shopping malls. He preceded Steven in death in 1988.

I have merely "skimmed" the career of the awesome "Claude Gordon-His Trumpet-and His Orchestra" by which name his numerous albums are titled. He traveled with his band until 1983, until the heart surgery precluded any further road work. His students were myriad, many of them the famous brass men of today, like the great Virtuoso, Arturo Sandoval, an immigrant from Cuba, who had learned the trumpet from Claude's several books of study on the subject. Sandoval attended the doctoral ceremonies at La Sierra University just to meet Claude. He later played a concert at the university, using the old Gordon trumpet given to him as a gift.

In addition to all else, Claude Gordon designed and manufactured a trumpet, now used almost exclusively by orchestras everywhere, including Japan's National Symphony.

I last saw Claude out in public, with Patty, at the second of the two concerts at the PAC presenting the "Jack Daniel's Silver Comet Band". He was in the midst of radium treatments then, and quite weak, but, he said, "I had to hear this great band!"

I have kept my aged stereo player just to be able to play both Claude's and Steven's albums, gifts to me through the years. They are a treasured part of my "78's" library. It is a gift of fortune that I have known them!

(Revisions to article made for historical accuracy by Patty Gordon)