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Pittsburgher Danny Conn may not be a household name, but the hall of fame trumpeter has accompanied everyone from Sinatra to PBT

Sunday, September 22, 2002

By Nate Guidry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Upstairs at his home in Wilkins, Danny Conn sits listening to homemade recordings of some of his performances. One of these days, he's going to get them waxed. Been thinking of doing that for some time now.

He's feeling a little introspective. More than he has in some time.

The discomfort of thyroid surgery has him questioning things -- mostly his music.

He doesn't know if he'll be able to play the way he once did. He certainly can't practice as often. Once the chops go, so does the sound -- a big, beautiful and lyrical sound.

Riffing on a battered trumpet is what he does, going on 62 years now. Can't think of doing anything else, except maybe playing 18 holes of golf with his pal Carmen DeLuca.

He isn't too concerned that he hasn't reached the legendary status of Bix Beiderbecke or Miles Davis.

Every musical art form needs what he provides. He's the quintessential sideman, a trumpet player who can play it all -- jazz, blues, doo-wop, country, mariachi, classical, circus and Dixieland.

Back in the '50s, he accompanied Blaze Starr, Tempest Storm and other popular strip dancers at the old Casino Theater, Downtown. He also has performed in Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's production of "The Great Gatsby."

His self-effacing style has provided accompaniment to everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ben Vereen.

Earlier this year, Conn, along with vocalist Sandy Staley, bassist Bobby Boswell, trombonist Slide Hampton and saxophonist John Walton, were inducted into the Pittsburgh Jazz Society's Jazz Hall of Fame. The award is presented to Pittsburgh musicians who have made a significant contribution to jazz.

And it's about time everyone knows of Conn's contributions. For that matter, knows of him.

'The big time'

"Dan is a world-class musician," says John Wilson, trumpeter, bandleader and professor of jazz history and arrangement at Duquesne University and Carnegie Mellon University. "He has a unique personality on the trumpet.

"He has always thought of himself first and foremost as jazz musician. But he can do it all. Put the charts in front of him and he will do the job."

Conn is still inspired by music. Bebop flows through his body as strong as the day his friend Burd "Buzz" Renn introduced him to Dizzy Gillespie's and Charlie Parker's "Groovin High":

"Man! You've got to come over and hear this trumpet player."
"What's his name?"
"John Birks Gillespie, man. They call him Dizzy."
"What's so special about him?
"Just get on the trolley and come over."

Conn, then 15, boarded the trolley that day. And years later, at 74, he's still aboard and "Groovin' High."

Born Daniel Costabile, later changed to Constable and finally to Conn, he grew up in East Liberty and began playing trumpet at 12.

His grandfather, who played cornet, taught him the rudiments of the instruments before helping him get his first job in an Italian marching band. For three years, the group performed for St. Anthony's and St. Rocco's Day celebrations.

They walked through the neighborhoods performing the Italian and American national anthems as well as other songs and minor marches.

At the end of each celebration, Conn was paid $5. The second year, he got a $5 raise. The final year, he played a jazz solo on "Some of These Days" and was paid $25.

"I made the big time," he recalls with a chuckle. "It was the most money I had ever made. My grandfather was so proud of me."

Later, he would perform in Rome with a 45-piece Italian band for the pope.

Still, Conn didn't take the instrument too seriously until he became a member of the famed Westinghouse High School Kadets, a swing band that played music ranging from "String of Pearls" to Coleman Hawkins' "Body and Soul."

The band was directed by Carl McVickers and featured saxophonist "Buzz" Renn and his brother, trombonist Jack Renn, who was killed in an auto accident in 1955 in Nebraska while touring with the Jimmy Palmer band.

The Kadets also featured trombonist Grover Mitchell (who now directs the Count Basie Orchestra), pianist Ahmad Jamal, trumpeters Pete Henderson and Albert Aarons (who was a staff musician at MGM) and vocalists Dakota Staton and Adam Wade.

"McVickers was staid and proper," says Renn from his home in Atlantic City, N.J. "But he was very much into modern music, and Danny just seemed to eat that up. Danny was the driving force for getting guys together. Even back then, he had a high sense of musical development. He's just had that musical antenna."

After school, Conn listened to records, mostly trumpet players, and sometimes copied solos, including Bunny Berrigan's "I Can't Get Started" and Theodore "Fats" Navarro's "Fat Boy."

"Those records had a huge effect on me," he says. "I was amazed by how they got around the horn."

Soon, he began to perform locally, playing mostly honky-tonk music at a club in Homewood called the Everbest, which is now the Too Sweet Lounge.

In 1950, Conn left Pittsburgh to join Burt Massengale's band in Hattiesburg, Miss. The eight-piece group played a lot of songs associated with singer Phil Harris, like "The Preacher and the Bear" and "Benny's from Heaven," as well as Latin and Dixieland music.

After the Mississippi engagement, the group spent three months in Greensboro, N.C., performing seven days a week.

"All I had to do was hand him the music and stomp off the tempo," says 92-year-old former bandleader Massengale from his home in Greensboro.

"I had never seen anyone who could sight read like him. At one time, I had seven players in my band from Pittsburgh because they all could read. I raised Danny musically. He was a very dedicated player with great intonation and stamina."

During the Korean War, Conn left Massengale to take a $125-a-week job with Clyde McCoy and the Sugar Blues Kings. The manager of the group was very strict. One day, he left Conn, Vic Powell and two other band members in a hotel in Harrisburg. He told them the bus was leaving at 9 a.m., but they didn't stroll into the lobby until 9:15. The bus was gone.

They didn't know what to do. Conn thought about taking a plane; instead they took the Greyhound to the gig in upstate New York, only to find that McCoy had hired a new trumpet player for the night.

"He didn't fire me," says Conn. "I was lucky. He hated people to quit the band, but he didn't have any problems firing you."

Once, a saxophonist quit to join another band, and he fired the entire saxophone section.

"After a while I had enough of that, so I told him I had to take an Army examination, and McCoy said, 'Oh, I'm sorry, you are welcome to come back when it's over,' " Conn recalls.

With Pittsburgh as a base, Conn joined Claude Thornhill's band and later bands with Al Boleto, Hal McIntyre and others.

Life on the road was great, but it wasn't always easy.

Stranded in Daytona Beach, he lifted a few steaks out of a local A&P store. Another time, the owner of a club where he and saxophonist Phil Woods had been performing fleeced them for nine days pay. (Woods is probably jazz's greatest living alto saxophonist and a direct musical descendant of Charlie Parker. For a time, he was married to Parker's ex-wife, Chan.)

Sometimes Conn felt like a strumpet, working in burlesque houses and with "mouse bands."

He swallowed his pride, though. Claire, his beautiful little Italian wife, and their eight children depended on him.

"No matter where I was, I was always home for Christmas," he recalls. "My family is important to me. I had to take some odd jobs to make it sometimes. I could have been a purist and played one style, but I chose to be versatile and because of it, I worked more.

"Another great thing about being a musician was, I never had to get up in the morning and go to work. I can't fathom having to deal with traffic through the Squirrel Hill tunnel. That's enough to make anyone want to become a musician."

'In my glory'

Conn's dedication extends beyond family; he's also a loyal friend.

Case in point: Michael "Dodo" Marmarosa, a piano wunderkind who disappeared from the national music scene nearly 40 years ago but whose fingerprints continued to resonate in the annals of jazz. Marmarosa died last week at age 76, but Conn had made a habit of visiting him weekly, boosting his spirits and reliving glorious days long since tucked into the warmth of memories.

Most times their visits consisted of conversations about music, health and family. But for a few moments some months ago, the two transformed the bingo room of the Southwestern Veterans Center in Highland Park, where Marmarosa lived, into an impromptu jam session.

It was an intense, communal kind of musical exchange between old friends who, despite not having performed together in years, remained spiritually connected.

"He was a genius on the piano, or at least the closest thing to one I had ever heard," says Conn, who recorded "Pittsburgh 1958" with Marmarosa. "Dodo didn't have to give music a second thought."

And Marmarosa, interviewed shortly before his death Tuesday, clearly appreciated their special bond.

"Danny is a great artist, trumpeter and arranger," Marmarosa had said. "He's also a great friend. He comes to visit me a lot and it's always a great pleasure to have him. Sometimes Danny and I and Joe Dallas get together and we have a session for the girls at the [veterans'] center."

In the early 1960s, Conn performed more than 50 concerts with Stevie Wonder and the Supremes. Later, at Atlantic City's 500 Club, he backed up Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. He still has a sketch of the "Rat Pack" as a wonderful reminder.

For the next 20 years, when he wasn't working locally with guitarist Joe Negri and others, he and trombonist Dallas served as co-music directors for the Hamid-Morton Circus (now Hamid Circus Royale). They chased down trapeze acts from Tulsa to LaCrosse with songs like "LaFiesta" and Miles Davis' "Milestone."

"The circus never again had a band like that," says saxophonist Vic Powell from his home in Brigantine, N.J.

Powell, who grew up in Pittsburgh, was a member of the band in its earliest stages.

"It was a jazz band with a circus flavor," says Powell.

"Dan had a great way of arranging the music," says Dallas. "We hardly played the music the way it was given to us."

In 1987, Conn performed in Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's world premiere of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." The music, selected and in some cases composed by Gunther Schuller, ranged from Charles Ives and George Gershwin to Duke Ellington.

"I got to play all those old Duke tunes like 'Black and Tan Fantasy' and the "Mooche" on the plunger mute," say Conn. "It was an exciting time. 'The Great Gatsby' -- man, I was in my glory for a week."

Now, Conn is thinking of his next job. On Nov. 15, he will be performing at James Street Tavern.

He needn't worry about delivering the goods. He always has.