Don Butterfield - Jazz Tuba Player -- R.I.P.

[Lois Gilbert]

Don Butterfield, 83, Jazz Tuba Player
By Associated Press
November 30, 2006

Don Butterfield, a renowned tuba player who began playing the instrument because his high school band was out of trumpets, died Monday. He was 83, and lived in Clifton, N.J.

During Butterfield's five decade career, he played with such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Leonard Bernstein, Frank Sinatra, and Charles Mingus. He was known for his ability to get melodious jazz sounds out of a musical instrument that had often been viewed as ungainly.

David Demsey, a professor of music and coordinator of jazz studies at William Paterson University, told the Herald News of West Paterson that Butterfield "brought back the tuba and took the oompa out and added a melodic tone."

Born in Centralia, Wash., Butterfield wanted to play the trumpet for his high school band but was handed a tuba because there were no more trumpets. Butterfield went on to study at the Juilliard School in New York.

During a career that lasted from the 1940s through the late 1990s, he performed as a studio musician, recording with notable artists, and also for television commercials and soundtracks.

His work can be heard on the "Godfather: Part II," and "Bullets Over Broadway."

In a 2003 interview with the Record of Bergen County, Butterfield acknowledged that the tuba could be viewed as ungainly and unglamorous, which he compared to "an interstate truck driver."

"We're not going to be racing in the Indianapolis 500," he said. "At the same time, we understand that we have a certain function in the orchestra."