Chase Remembered
Story from Mosaic Records Maynard Ferguson Roulette records reissue, as recounted by Jerry Tyree..
Tyree recalls that trumpeter Bill Chase was in the lead chair for a brief spell during...but actually had trouble cutting the book. "actually,"
Tyree recounts, "Bill Chase got fired off the band because he couldn't play above a high C without passing out. He was playing on a mouthpiece Bob Giardinelli had made for him that was just awful. Chase was built like Lil' Abner so he was a strong guy, but his lead playing just didn't cut it." "Because Maynard usually played so high, there weren't that many high notes in the lead book. The first Fs that were written in there were in Don Sebesky's charts, 'cause the highest note in everything else was an E-flat. Everything above F Maynard played. Chase played some of those hard ensembles and he'd just fall over."
"I finally told Maynard, I'm tired of holding this big dumb motherfucker up, it's not part of my job description. If he don't get a fucking mouthpiece , I'm going to let his ass fall. We went into Birdland and Maynard said, if you haven't got a new mouthpiece in two weeks, tonight's the first night of your two week notice. At the end, he didn't have it and Maynard fired him and eventually got Chet Ferretti."
But Chase did eventually get his lead chops together. Tyree, who recently turned sixty and still gigs around Orlando, recollects that "after I left Maynard, I joined Woody and at the first rehearsal, Bill Chase was sitting in the middle of the trumpet section. I said to myself, I'm not going through this shit again. Well , we played one tune and he ended on a high A that just rattled the windows. I said, 'let me see your new mouthpiece man, why didn't you do that two years ago?' He was stubborn, but he was cranking out those high notes like there was no tomorow. Had he gotten a new mouthpiece back then, like Maynard had told him to, he might have taken another path, he might still be alive. So when Maynard tells you to get another mouthpiece, get another mouthpiece!!"