To play with the great Steve Witser and Joe Alessi that summer in Colorado was pretty special.
The personnel manager turned his computer screen around and it said Riccardo Muti is named new music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I sat down and cried like a baby.
Bud Herseth used to refer to me as a greenhorn. I was totally a greenhorn. I didn’t know one side of the trumpet from the other.
We were in a small room. Arnold Jacobs was there, Sir Georg Solti was there and Solti told me that I had won the job. I made it very very clear I was not replacing Arnold Jacobs because Arnold Jacobs was irreplaceable.
