Horn player looks to tap into talent

Paul Beebe is looking for a few good men.

Ditto women. And kids. And…

Heck, Beebe’d probably take a chipmunk if the beast had an educated embouchure.

Beebe is desperately seeking 100 horn players. He needs them to sound taps at area cemeteries and military memorials on Armed Forces Day – May 19.

This will be part of Echo Taps World Wide – an event designed to honor (through the playing of taps) the sacrifices and contributions of those who served our country.

By “horns” Beebe specifically means trumpets, cornets and flugelhorns. Even so, the 46-year-old musician wouldn’t turn down a trombonist or three.

The musicians will be divided into groups and deployed to sites like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Riverfront Park, the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena and the Fort George Wright Cemetery.

At 11 a.m. sharp, taps will be performed in stirring echo fashion: One player repeating another, and so on.

(Interested players can contact Beebe at (509) 868-1793 or p-beebe@hotmail.com.)

“All you need to do is get through taps and you’re done – 48 seconds, that’s all,” he said.

The problem is that the Spokane man has managed to round up only 18 players.

Make that 19 if I decide to do my part.

Not to toot my own horn, but I was a pretty fair trumpeter back in the day.

I got my start in Spokane’s long-gone “All-City” band, a wonderful program that produced many fine musicians.

I still remember when band founder R.K. Harris showed up at Franklin Elementary School. I was in fourth grade. Harris spread various band instruments across a table. After demonstrations he let us pick up and fiddle with the brass and woodwinds and percussion.

I decided right there and then to be a trumpet player.

I played all through grade school and sat first chair at Ferris High School. I continued for three years in college until I had one of those life-altering moments.

Sitting next to Larry Jess made me realize that – barring a voodoo curse that allowed me to absorb my friend’s virtuosity – I was never going to play like this cat.

Jess went on to continued brilliance with various bands, ensembles and as principal trumpet with the Spokane Symphony, a position he currently enjoys.

I switched majors from music to journalism and sold my Bach trumpet to buy a camera.

I know what you readers are thinking.

Please, don’t thank me.

On Monday, I found my tarnished antique King cornet and hauled it over to Beebe’s house off Northwest Boulevard. The fact I hadn’t blown a note through the instrument since New Year’s Eve two years ago didn’t deter me.

Leaning back on Beebe’s couch, I managed to regale the man with a mostly in-tune version of taps. Beebe was impressed.

“You could still be a great trumpet player if you wanted,” he said.

Yes. And a lingerie model, too.

I was more inspired when Beebe mentioned that the old silver cornet might be valuable. I don’t know what that means, but I dropped it off at Hoffman Music for an overhaul just in case.

Beebe began playing trumpet at age 7. He now plays in a salsa band: Papa Gordo and Ninos del Sol.

A former U.S. Army Band member, Beebe said he began performing taps at military funerals with the Army National Guard’s Honor Guard.

He is the Eastern Washington coordinator for the aforementioned Echo Taps group and something called Bugles Across America. That latter organization, according to its Web site, came to be in 2000 after Congress passed a law stating that all veterans had a funereal right to at least two uniformed military members to fold the flag and play taps on a CD player.

“Bugles Across America was begun to take this a step further. … We felt that every veteran deserved a live rendition of taps played by a live bugler,” stated the site.

Playing taps in the flesh is a small way to thank our fallen heroes, said Beebe, who performed at five funerals last Saturday.

I’m guessing that many of you didn’t know that the nation suffers from an alarming bugler shortage.

It’s true. The aged World War II generation is dying off at an alarming rate. There aren’t enough available players to keep up.

Because of this a digital “smart” bugle is often used. The faux instrument looks like a bugle, but that’s as far as it goes.

It is an ersatz device that reproduces taps electronically.

This is an abomination to all trumpet players.

Fortunately, Beebe has a solution for what to do when confronting a bogus bugle.

“Anytime somebody’s got one of those I tell them, ‘Put it under my tire.’ I want to run all of these things over.”