Jim Hatfield didn’t even have his windows open, but outside his Glen Ellyn home, the sound of trumpets was loud enough to be heard over the noise of lawn mowers on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Neighbors in the know went about their business pulling weeds and ignoring the cars parked in front of their homes for this special afternoon. Others, like dog walkers, halted in front of the house, looked up and listened with a quizzical stare.
If Jim Hatfield wasn’t so busy with his guests, he might have stuck his head out the front door and told them, “Yes. It’s supposed to sound like this.”
Hatfield, 76, who had his first trumpet lesson at 11, was hosting his ninth annual Trumpet Hang, a gathering of trumpeters from the Chicago area as well as from St. Louis, Milwaukee, Michigan and beyond.
They meet up each year to talk trumpets, share trumpets, and put a face to user names they converse with on trumpetherald.com, “the trumpeter’s home on the web.”
He calls his popular get-together a “hang” because that’s what trumpet players do after a gig, he said.
“They hang.”
Beforehand, Hatfield warned visitors that the musicians, accomplished as they might be, would not be playing in harmony. Some guys would be trying out a jazz lick while others played a bit from a classic tune. And some might just be making noise.
“There’s no pressure, no fuss, just an opportunity to try a bunch of instruments and meet a lot of other players,” said Hatfield. “It’s a good time, but it can be loud. Very loud.”
Hatfield posts the invite for the hang online and has had anywhere from a dozen to more than 40 people show up. By mid-afternoon Sunday, about 20 horn players were on hand.
Regular attendee Steve Winans, best known in the music business as Doctor Valve for the brass repair shop he owns in Lemont, describes the afternoon as “cacophony.”
“The thing that Jim does is pretty unique,” said Winans. “Guys bring their horns. You meet somebody new. Maybe you get to try a horn you’ve been hoping to try. I don’t know of anything like it. It’s helpful, and you get your questions answered.
“We are a curious lot.”
“The trumpet is challenging to play well, and it’s the most unforgiving thing to take time off from. It’s powerful. Very majestic,” he said. “And you can’t miss it, which is both a blessing and curse. If you skip a couple days of playing, it’s ‘Oh, boy.”’
The hang regulars run the gamut from “comeback players,” or guys (and occasionally a few women) who played years ago and have just picked up the horn again, to professionals who perform in various genres.
Rob Loar of Bartlett, who has a Chicago pop band called Soda, and Roger Ingram of La Grange, who was lead trumpeter for Maynard Ferguson, among others, are both regular hang participants.
Even for such accomplished trumpeters, “there’s always something new to learn, somebody new to meet,” said Bill Rife of Westchester, who teaches instrument repair at VanderCook College of Music and plays in Hatfield’s band, The Sound Hounds, which Hatfield calls “a little big band.”
“Anybody can go on trumpetherald and ask their questions. ‘How do I play like Maynard Ferguson? How do I play really, really high?'” said Rife. “This is a continuation of that. You actually get to talk to people, get their opinions, hear their stories. And next year you get to see them again.”
Liz Baker, who lives across the street from Hatfield, said she doesn’t mind it when the trumpeters gather.
“You hear a little jazz. A little something else,” she said. “All of us in the neighborhood have agreed, though, that we wish they would play one cohesive song for us. Can they just play one song together? That would be nice.”
Baker said she enjoys the times when Hatfield sits on his porch and plays.
“We also have a neighbor who plays the bagpipes, you know,” she said.
Daniel Campbell, a newcomer to this year’s Trumpet Hang, drove up with two friends from St. Louis. He was engrossed in conversation with Thomas Krueger of Milwaukee, trying out Krueger’s grandfather’s 1949 fluegelhorn, when he was surprised by one of Hatfield’s guests.
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Out of the back room, away from the blare of trumpets upstairs, walked well-known trumpet player Andy Marchese, who had come from his home just a few blocks away. He brought along his two valuable Martin Committee trumpets for the others to try.
At 94, Marchese still has a nine-piece band and gives about a dozen private lessons a week. He could have told star-studded stories all day to a captive and appreciative audience, but he was more interested in playing the old fluegelhorn that Campbell was holding. Immediately the others stood quiet in appreciation.
“I play to keep in shape,” said Marchese, who also happens to walk four miles a day and occasionally makes an impromptu stop at Hatfield’s to play a little jazz on the baby grand piano.
“That’s how I met Jim. I was walking by one day and I heard him playing, so I stopped,” Marchese said. “He asked if I played. So I did. He turned out to be one of my good friends.”
“This day gives us opportunities we wouldn’t have otherwise,” said Krueger, after listening to Marchese play a short tune.
Upstairs, where the trumpets filled the room, the “cacophony” would continue for a few more hours.
“You know,” said Krueger, “the original date for this was picked because that was the day Jim’s wife was going to be out of town.”
Joan Cary is a freelance reporter.