Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette On most Wednesday nights, you can find trumpeter Chuck Austin playing with Roger Humphries' Big Band at Dowes on 9th, Downtown. Click photo for larger image. Life in Tune This occasional series profiles longtime performers and aficionados to mine their memories and knowledge of a lifetime in music. See an index to previous articles in this occasional series.

Now and then he gets to stand, take a solo and bow. Mostly, though, he operates in the rear, a silhouette in the shadows of the spotlight.

That's the life of a sideman. They go unnoticed and underappreciated until needed. But they are always called upon because sidemen make up the bulk of musicians in every community.

Not everyone can be a band leader, and some leaders have no business leading. But a good sideman will always find work because band leaders know their value. They're supportive, self-deprecating and versed in a broad range of musical styles.

Austin plays jazz, blues, pop, society, classical and carnival music. Counting back to the days at Ben Avon Elementary, he's been riffing for nearly 70 years.

Music is that way. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

First you grab hold of it, wrestling with the instrument, the scales and the songs. Then it grabs hold of you, seducing and imploring you to examine its deeper mysteries.

Austin has enjoyed the relationship -- even with the occasional and inevitable struggles. He never made it to the big time, for instance. He doesn't have a recording contract and likely never will. He hasn't toured the world.

But this horn-blowing stalwart, referred to by one contemporary as a "one of a kind" jazzman, did manage to tour the country with Lloyd Price, Paul Williams and a black vaudeville troupe directed by Irvin C. Miller.

In 1953, he opened the Hurricane Lounge with the Ruby Younge Trio. The group featured Austin on trumpet, the late Bobby Boswell on bass and Younge on organ.

He was able to perform in the last concert Count Basie performed at the Savoy Ballroom on Centre Avenue in the Hill District in the early 1970s.

He currently leads the trumpet section in the Roger Humphries Big Band, plays with the Balcony Big Band and the Burgh Big Band and has performed with Jack Purcell Music Service the past 34 years.

His only real regret is in not joining Ray Charles' band when he had the opportunity in the early 1960s. He chose to remain in Pittsburgh to be with his ex-wife, Bernice, and their two children, Lynn and Charles II.

Now, at age 77 but in excellent physical condition, Austin feels his best years are ahead.

"There's a lot of music inside me that I want to give to the world," he says, sitting on the porch of his Ben Avon home. "I have to do this because playing music is what I do, and tomorrow isn't promised."

In the beginning

Playing music began for Austin a few feet from his front-porch perch.

When he was in sixth grade, his grandfather, George Austin, gave him and his foster brother each a trumpet for Christmas. Austin took his and went into the yard and started playing.

After a few weeks of blowing noise, his mother's boyfriend, who was a full-time musician at the Roosevelt Theatre, wrote the staff lines and the notes and fingering for the scale.

"He didn't name the notes, but I learned to play the scale up and down," said Austin.

Six months later, Austin joined the school band and eventually the orchestra. Nick Lomakin, who owned a music store and was a music teacher at Ben Avon, started a dance band for the students, and Austin joined, later becoming its leader.

"It was a Mickey Mouse band, but we had fun. And I played all through high school."

He graduated in 1945 and enlisted in the Navy, hoping to join its official band. After basic training, Austin was stationed in Rhode Island and, later, Virginia, but he never was given an opportunity to join the band.

He returned to Pittsburgh after his discharge and moved to Homewood with his mother.

And it was during this time he began to develop as a musician.

In 1949, he joined the American Federation of Musicians, Local 471, the city's black musicians union. In those days musicians had to belong to the union; club owners wouldn't hire non-union players .

His first union card reads "Musicians Protective Association," which means the union representative would go to the club owners and guarantee that musicians would receive the union scale. Conversely, if musicians were delinquent paying their dues, the union representative would get the money from the club owner before the musicians were paid.

Blueblood connections

Austin's first job was at an after-hours nightclub in the Hill District. Later, he performed alongside vocalist Dakota Staton, who was still a student at Westinghouse High School. Staton eventually recorded a string of hits for Capitol Records and remains one of the most unappreciated singers in American music.

"When I played my first gig," Austin recalls, "I didn't know anything about improvisation. I could read music and play written-out solos, but I had nothing coming out of my head in terms of improvisation."

Eventually he did.

"It took a long time for that to happen, but now when people hear me play they know my sound. I've always been sound-conscious. For me, a good sound was the first thing you needed."

When his after-hours gig ended, Austin was encouraged by Warren Watson to join Joe Westray's band. Watson, a retired Common Pleas judge, played trumpet and saxophone in the band and spent 21*2 years directing the Navy band in San Diego and San Francisco.

"I was a trumpet player in Westray's group, but I was busy in law school," recalls Watson. "So when I found out that Chuck could play, I recommended him for the band. He took my spot and switched to saxophone. He could read very well and could play it all."

Westray's band featured blues music and arrangements from organ groups like Wild Bill Davis and Bill Doggett.

"It was a great experience for me because it provided me with an introduction to a lot of musicians around the city," says Austin. "[Saxophonist] Stanley Turrentine came out of that band.

"Westray played everything, but we were a blues band. In those days you couldn't play a black event and not play the blues. That band was my foundation, and as often as I can I give credit to Joe Westray and Judge Watson."

In the early 1950s, he left Westray's group to join Irvin C. Miller and the Brownskin Models, a carnival and vaudeville troupe.

During a stop in Jackson, Miss., two young women in the troupe wouldn't accept the boundaries of segregation.

"Back then, black folks couldn't go into clothing stores and try on clothes," he says with a chuckle. "So these two young women would go in stores and try on dresses and stuff and we would be saying, 'You can't do this. You are going to get us killed.' Trying on clothes in Mississippi wasn't something you wanted to be doing."

During one of those extended road trips, he and Turrentine became close friends. Turrentine was traveling with Lowell Fulsom's group, which featured a young Ray Charles on piano.

"Stanley and I became tight, but his brother, Tommy, was an intimidating trumpet player. Tommy could play all of the changes, and I didn't know anything about that at the time."

After a brief stint with Paul Williams, Austin joined Lloyd Price's band. Sam Hurt, a trombone player from the Hill District, had recommended him for the band. Price was one of ABC Paramount Records' biggest recording acts.

The group toured Ohio before returning to Pittsburgh for a week-long engagement at the Copa. They recorded the album "Personality" in 1959.

'A great sound'

"Charlie is one of a kind," said tenor saxophonist Merritt Dalton from his home in Kentwood, Mich. Dalton, a Homewood native, and Austin worked in Price's band together.

"Charlie is a fantastic musician. Sometimes I would go by his house and he would be transcribing Miles Davis solos. Not a lot of people were doing that at the time. We toured the West Coast and Canada together. He could read sideways. He is the perfect player and sideman."

Austin left Price's group after a heated financial dispute, returned to Pittsburgh and started performing around town.

For a time he worked with the Apollos, a quintet featuring Austin on trumpet, saxophonist Art Nance, bassist Spider Lindsey, drummer Doc Miller and Horace Parlan, a polio-stricken pianist who moved to Denmark after making several seminal recordings with legendary bassist/composer Charles Mingus, including "Mingus Ah Um" and "Blues & Roots."

"We were doing a lot of the Jazz Messenger things, but we were also doing a lot of the blues dance stuff associated with Ray Charles," said Austin. "Horace is a heck of a piano player. Most people don't know that he had polio at a young age. But his piano teacher worked with him to strengthen his hand. His teacher taught him how to overcome one aspect of his playing by doing something else. He is so soulful in his playing."

Speaking from his home in Denmark, Parlan, who is 73 and nearly blind, said Austin is one of the most lyrical trumpeters he ever performed with.

"It's been years since we played together, but I remember the Apollos being a special group. We tried to develop a group sound. We played material that was varied -- blues and stuff associated with the Max Roach and Clifford Brown Quintet and Art Blakey and the Messengers. But Chuck had a great sound. For him having the right sound was everything."

After the Apollos, Austin received a call to go on the road with the Ray Charles Revue, but he declined.

"It would have been an exciting experience to be with Ray," who died last month. "But I gave up my traveling career to be with my family. It was a hard decision to make."

These days, he fills his time leading the trumpet section in the Humphries Big Band and takes on other jobs as they come along.

"Music is my life. It's what has sustained me through some really tough times. It hasn't been easy, but I would do it over again."