Jazz Trumpeter Marcus Belgrave

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=5329

The pre-teens and teens in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Civic Jazz
Orchestra are taking Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn?s ?The Star-Crossed
Lovers? from the top, then from this bar and that, when Marcus Belgrave
</guide/musicians/artistprofile.asp?id=1916> bustles into the room. He?s
wearing a Sun Ra T-shirt, khaki pants and a straw golf hat with the brim
riding low on his forehead; there?s a toothpick rakishly angled in an
engaging smile that?s rimmed by a salt-and-pepper moustache above and an
all-salt goatee below. Under his arms are the tools of the day: A Kanstul
brand trumpet in leather traveling bag, a manila folder of sheet music, a
personal CD player loaded with a disc by the rather obscure trumpeter Carmel
Jones, headphones, a cell phone, and a clear flask of Inner Light Super
Greens (a purportedly healthful concoction resembling pond water).
He nods to all, then strides away from the activity to the empty side of the
rehearsal room in Wayne State University?s music building. He begins setting
down his gear while obviously tuning into the sound of the orchestra. To a
reporter, he explains softly in his growly voice that it?s a long day
already ? and it?s not yet 10 a.m. He dreamed about an old bandmate last
night, a bass player from Belgrave?s days with Ray Charles. The guy died in
the dream, which was a perplex because the guy?s been dead for years ? and
Belgrave?s narrow eyes widen as if bolting upright in bed all over again.
So there was Serious Bell ? as one bandleader once referred to him ? the
trumpet king, talent scout and teacher, awake at 4 a.m., and unable to get
back to sleep. He did some house cleaning, went searching for a tune that
Kenny Garrett, one of his protégés, had called him about. And this Carmel
Jones tune had been bugging him for a while, so he says he sat down and
wrote out band parts for Jones? take on ?Deep Purple? ? reborn as ?Bleep
Durple.?