A musical funeral Mass will be held in San Rafael this morning for Joseph Alessi, a longtime classical trumpet player who reached the pinnacle of his profession as a trumpeter with the Metropolitan Opera and a number of other famous New York orchestras, then carved out a second career in San Francisco, teaching hundreds of people how to play the trumpet.
Mr. Alessi died Dec. 24 at his home in San Rafael , surrounded by his family. He was 89, came from a long line of musicians and, in turn, married a Metropolitan Opera soprano, with whom he had flirted while she was on stage and he was blowing his trumpet in the orchestra pit, back in the 1950s. They produced two more musicians, both nationally known.
One son, also named Joseph Alessi, is the principal trombonist with the New York Philharmonic and at today's service for his father will play "O Babbino Caro," from a Puccini opera. His brother, jazz trumpeter Ralph Alessi, will join with Ravi Coltrane on a version of "Amazing Grace," arranged by one of Mr. Alessi's students, San Rafael composer Robert Elkjer; and Mr. Alessi's wife, Maria Leone Alessi, will sing Oscar Rasbach's "Trees."
"We're not doing this as a show," Joseph Alessi said Tuesday. "Instead, we're trying to offer this as a gift to my father."
Mr. Alessi was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Norwood, N.J., when his father, a musician who was also named Joseph Alessi, decided he wanted to move his family away from the increasingly rough streets of New York.
After Dumont High School, Mr. Alessi studied at the Juilliard School in New York. When the United States entered World War II, Mr. Alessi joined the Navy and was stationed in Rochester, N.Y., where he was a member of a Navy band. After the war, he resumed his studies, this time at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received his bachelor of music degree, and joined the Met's orchestra in 1948.
At some point in the 1950s, the opera hired a new soprano, Maria Leone, and, Joseph Alessi said, his father "saw her onstage and they started to make signals back and forth from the stage to the (orchestra) pit." The couple married in the late 1950s. At the time, Mr. Alessi was also playing with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and other New York symphonies and operas.
It was about this time that Mr. Alessi's life began to change in signal ways. He and one of his old teachers, William Vacchiano, a longtime member of the New York Philharmonic, noticed that in the trumpet solo in a Shostakovich concerto there was a very low note (an F-sharp, according to Joseph Alessi) that could not be reached by a trumpet, even with the trumpet mutes that were being manufactured at the time.
Mr. Alessi and Vacchiano thought they could solve the problem, and so they would get together on weekends, Alessi said, and "experiment designing mutes, putting them together ad hoc until they found one that worked. It's called a 'straight mute.' " The mute for brass instruments became successful and Vacchiano and Mr. Alessi eventually sold their mute business to a large music company.
By now, at the end of the 1950s, Mr. Alessi was still "not in a real high- paying job," Alessi said, and so he decided, as many musicians before him had done, to go west and work for the movie studio orchestras. On his way to Los Angeles, he stopped off in Las Vegas to see a musician friend. When Mr. Alessi told the friend of his plans, the man said he could get plenty of work right there in Las Vegas.
As luck would have it, comedian Red Skelton was in town and was using opera music in his acts. Mr. Alessi, because of his classical training, could read the sheet music and instantly transpose keys for the trumpet parts of operas, a skill in short supply in Las Vegas at the time, and so he did indeed get a lot of work. He ended up in a group that was called the Relief Band because it spelled other musicians each night, moving from one glittery hotel to another, day after day.
The downside was that he never got a night off and after about a year he and his family moved to San Francisco, where Mr. Alessi found work playing in San Francisco's opera orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Alessi began Chapter Two of his life: He started teaching, first at a music store in South San Francisco, then for a while at Aptos Junior High School, City College in San Francisco and San Francisco State University.
But his forte became his private lessons, teaching trumpet to hundreds of students, including his son, Ralph.
"He had nonstop trumpet lessons going on in his house," Ralph Alessi said Tuesday, "a good four or five hours a day. One after another."
"I studied with him for about 10 years, from when I was six until I was 16," Ralph Alessi said. "Then I got too big for my britches, and he said, 'I can't teach you any more.' He had me study with this fellow who played in the San Francisco Symphony."
In addition to his wife, Maria Leone Alessi, of San Rafael , and his sons, Joseph, of Nyack, N.Y., and Ralph, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Alessi is survived by two grandchildren.
San Francisco Chronicle (CA) - December 29, 2004
Mr. Alessi died Dec. 24 at his home in San Rafael , surrounded by his family. He was 89, came from a long line of musicians and, in turn, married a Metropolitan Opera soprano, with whom he had flirted while she was on stage and he was blowing his trumpet in the orchestra pit, back in the 1950s. They produced two more musicians, both nationally known.
One son, also named Joseph Alessi, is the principal trombonist with the New York Philharmonic and at today's service for his father will play "O Babbino Caro," from a Puccini opera. His brother, jazz trumpeter Ralph Alessi, will join with Ravi Coltrane on a version of "Amazing Grace," arranged by one of Mr. Alessi's students, San Rafael composer Robert Elkjer; and Mr. Alessi's wife, Maria Leone Alessi, will sing Oscar Rasbach's "Trees."
"We're not doing this as a show," Joseph Alessi said Tuesday. "Instead, we're trying to offer this as a gift to my father."
Mr. Alessi was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Norwood, N.J., when his father, a musician who was also named Joseph Alessi, decided he wanted to move his family away from the increasingly rough streets of New York.
After Dumont High School, Mr. Alessi studied at the Juilliard School in New York. When the United States entered World War II, Mr. Alessi joined the Navy and was stationed in Rochester, N.Y., where he was a member of a Navy band. After the war, he resumed his studies, this time at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received his bachelor of music degree, and joined the Met's orchestra in 1948.
At some point in the 1950s, the opera hired a new soprano, Maria Leone, and, Joseph Alessi said, his father "saw her onstage and they started to make signals back and forth from the stage to the (orchestra) pit." The couple married in the late 1950s. At the time, Mr. Alessi was also playing with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and other New York symphonies and operas.
It was about this time that Mr. Alessi's life began to change in signal ways. He and one of his old teachers, William Vacchiano, a longtime member of the New York Philharmonic, noticed that in the trumpet solo in a Shostakovich concerto there was a very low note (an F-sharp, according to Joseph Alessi) that could not be reached by a trumpet, even with the trumpet mutes that were being manufactured at the time.
Mr. Alessi and Vacchiano thought they could solve the problem, and so they would get together on weekends, Alessi said, and "experiment designing mutes, putting them together ad hoc until they found one that worked. It's called a 'straight mute.' " The mute for brass instruments became successful and Vacchiano and Mr. Alessi eventually sold their mute business to a large music company.
By now, at the end of the 1950s, Mr. Alessi was still "not in a real high- paying job," Alessi said, and so he decided, as many musicians before him had done, to go west and work for the movie studio orchestras. On his way to Los Angeles, he stopped off in Las Vegas to see a musician friend. When Mr. Alessi told the friend of his plans, the man said he could get plenty of work right there in Las Vegas.
As luck would have it, comedian Red Skelton was in town and was using opera music in his acts. Mr. Alessi, because of his classical training, could read the sheet music and instantly transpose keys for the trumpet parts of operas, a skill in short supply in Las Vegas at the time, and so he did indeed get a lot of work. He ended up in a group that was called the Relief Band because it spelled other musicians each night, moving from one glittery hotel to another, day after day.
The downside was that he never got a night off and after about a year he and his family moved to San Francisco, where Mr. Alessi found work playing in San Francisco's opera orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Alessi began Chapter Two of his life: He started teaching, first at a music store in South San Francisco, then for a while at Aptos Junior High School, City College in San Francisco and San Francisco State University.
But his forte became his private lessons, teaching trumpet to hundreds of students, including his son, Ralph.
"He had nonstop trumpet lessons going on in his house," Ralph Alessi said Tuesday, "a good four or five hours a day. One after another."
"I studied with him for about 10 years, from when I was six until I was 16," Ralph Alessi said. "Then I got too big for my britches, and he said, 'I can't teach you any more.' He had me study with this fellow who played in the San Francisco Symphony."
In addition to his wife, Maria Leone Alessi, of San Rafael , and his sons, Joseph, of Nyack, N.Y., and Ralph, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Alessi is survived by two grandchildren.
San Francisco Chronicle (CA) - December 29, 2004
A musical funeral Mass will be held in San Rafael this morning for Joseph Alessi, a longtime classical trumpet player who reached the pinnacle of his profession as a trumpeter with the Metropolitan Opera and a number of other famous New York orchestras, then carved out a second career in San Francisco, teaching hundreds of people how to play the trumpet.
Mr. Alessi died Dec. 24 at his home in San Rafael , surrounded by his family. He was 89, came from a long line of musicians and, in turn, married a Metropolitan Opera soprano, with whom he had flirted while she was on stage and he was blowing his trumpet in the orchestra pit, back in the 1950s. They produced two more musicians, both nationally known.
One son, also named Joseph Alessi, is the principal trombonist with the New York Philharmonic and at today's service for his father will play "O Babbino Caro," from a Puccini opera. His brother, jazz trumpeter Ralph Alessi, will join with Ravi Coltrane on a version of "Amazing Grace," arranged by one of Mr. Alessi's students, San Rafael composer Robert Elkjer; and Mr. Alessi's wife, Maria Leone Alessi, will sing Oscar Rasbach's "Trees."
"We're not doing this as a show," Joseph Alessi said Tuesday. "Instead, we're trying to offer this as a gift to my father."
Mr. Alessi was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Norwood, N.J., when his father, a musician who was also named Joseph Alessi, decided he wanted to move his family away from the increasingly rough streets of New York.
After Dumont High School, Mr. Alessi studied at the Juilliard School in New York. When the United States entered World War II, Mr. Alessi joined the Navy and was stationed in Rochester, N.Y., where he was a member of a Navy band. After the war, he resumed his studies, this time at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received his bachelor of music degree, and joined the Met's orchestra in 1948.
At some point in the 1950s, the opera hired a new soprano, Maria Leone, and, Joseph Alessi said, his father "saw her onstage and they started to make signals back and forth from the stage to the (orchestra) pit." The couple married in the late 1950s. At the time, Mr. Alessi was also playing with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and other New York symphonies and operas.
It was about this time that Mr. Alessi's life began to change in signal ways. He and one of his old teachers, William Vacchiano, a longtime member of the New York Philharmonic, noticed that in the trumpet solo in a Shostakovich concerto there was a very low note (an F-sharp, according to Joseph Alessi) that could not be reached by a trumpet, even with the trumpet mutes that were being manufactured at the time.
Mr. Alessi and Vacchiano thought they could solve the problem, and so they would get together on weekends, Alessi said, and "experiment designing mutes, putting them together ad hoc until they found one that worked. It's called a 'straight mute.' " The mute for brass instruments became successful and Vacchiano and Mr. Alessi eventually sold their mute business to a large music company.
By now, at the end of the 1950s, Mr. Alessi was still "not in a real high- paying job," Alessi said, and so he decided, as many musicians before him had done, to go west and work for the movie studio orchestras. On his way to Los Angeles, he stopped off in Las Vegas to see a musician friend. When Mr. Alessi told the friend of his plans, the man said he could get plenty of work right there in Las Vegas.
As luck would have it, comedian Red Skelton was in town and was using opera music in his acts. Mr. Alessi, because of his classical training, could read the sheet music and instantly transpose keys for the trumpet parts of operas, a skill in short supply in Las Vegas at the time, and so he did indeed get a lot of work. He ended up in a group that was called the Relief Band because it spelled other musicians each night, moving from one glittery hotel to another, day after day.
The downside was that he never got a night off and after about a year he and his family moved to San Francisco, where Mr. Alessi found work playing in San Francisco's opera orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Alessi began Chapter Two of his life: He started teaching, first at a music store in South San Francisco, then for a while at Aptos Junior High School, City College in San Francisco and San Francisco State University.
But his forte became his private lessons, teaching trumpet to hundreds of students, including his son, Ralph.
"He had nonstop trumpet lessons going on in his house," Ralph Alessi said Tuesday, "a good four or five hours a day. One after another."
"I studied with him for about 10 years, from when I was six until I was 16," Ralph Alessi said. "Then I got too big for my britches, and he said, 'I can't teach you any more.' He had me study with this fellow who played in the San Francisco Symphony."
In addition to his wife, Maria Leone Alessi, of San Rafael , and his sons, Joseph, of Nyack, N.Y., and Ralph, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Alessi is survived by two grandchildren.
San Francisco Chronicle (CA) - December 29, 2004
Mr. Alessi died Dec. 24 at his home in San Rafael , surrounded by his family. He was 89, came from a long line of musicians and, in turn, married a Metropolitan Opera soprano, with whom he had flirted while she was on stage and he was blowing his trumpet in the orchestra pit, back in the 1950s. They produced two more musicians, both nationally known.
One son, also named Joseph Alessi, is the principal trombonist with the New York Philharmonic and at today's service for his father will play "O Babbino Caro," from a Puccini opera. His brother, jazz trumpeter Ralph Alessi, will join with Ravi Coltrane on a version of "Amazing Grace," arranged by one of Mr. Alessi's students, San Rafael composer Robert Elkjer; and Mr. Alessi's wife, Maria Leone Alessi, will sing Oscar Rasbach's "Trees."
"We're not doing this as a show," Joseph Alessi said Tuesday. "Instead, we're trying to offer this as a gift to my father."
Mr. Alessi was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Norwood, N.J., when his father, a musician who was also named Joseph Alessi, decided he wanted to move his family away from the increasingly rough streets of New York.
After Dumont High School, Mr. Alessi studied at the Juilliard School in New York. When the United States entered World War II, Mr. Alessi joined the Navy and was stationed in Rochester, N.Y., where he was a member of a Navy band. After the war, he resumed his studies, this time at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received his bachelor of music degree, and joined the Met's orchestra in 1948.
At some point in the 1950s, the opera hired a new soprano, Maria Leone, and, Joseph Alessi said, his father "saw her onstage and they started to make signals back and forth from the stage to the (orchestra) pit." The couple married in the late 1950s. At the time, Mr. Alessi was also playing with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra and other New York symphonies and operas.
It was about this time that Mr. Alessi's life began to change in signal ways. He and one of his old teachers, William Vacchiano, a longtime member of the New York Philharmonic, noticed that in the trumpet solo in a Shostakovich concerto there was a very low note (an F-sharp, according to Joseph Alessi) that could not be reached by a trumpet, even with the trumpet mutes that were being manufactured at the time.
Mr. Alessi and Vacchiano thought they could solve the problem, and so they would get together on weekends, Alessi said, and "experiment designing mutes, putting them together ad hoc until they found one that worked. It's called a 'straight mute.' " The mute for brass instruments became successful and Vacchiano and Mr. Alessi eventually sold their mute business to a large music company.
By now, at the end of the 1950s, Mr. Alessi was still "not in a real high- paying job," Alessi said, and so he decided, as many musicians before him had done, to go west and work for the movie studio orchestras. On his way to Los Angeles, he stopped off in Las Vegas to see a musician friend. When Mr. Alessi told the friend of his plans, the man said he could get plenty of work right there in Las Vegas.
As luck would have it, comedian Red Skelton was in town and was using opera music in his acts. Mr. Alessi, because of his classical training, could read the sheet music and instantly transpose keys for the trumpet parts of operas, a skill in short supply in Las Vegas at the time, and so he did indeed get a lot of work. He ended up in a group that was called the Relief Band because it spelled other musicians each night, moving from one glittery hotel to another, day after day.
The downside was that he never got a night off and after about a year he and his family moved to San Francisco, where Mr. Alessi found work playing in San Francisco's opera orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Alessi began Chapter Two of his life: He started teaching, first at a music store in South San Francisco, then for a while at Aptos Junior High School, City College in San Francisco and San Francisco State University.
But his forte became his private lessons, teaching trumpet to hundreds of students, including his son, Ralph.
"He had nonstop trumpet lessons going on in his house," Ralph Alessi said Tuesday, "a good four or five hours a day. One after another."
"I studied with him for about 10 years, from when I was six until I was 16," Ralph Alessi said. "Then I got too big for my britches, and he said, 'I can't teach you any more.' He had me study with this fellow who played in the San Francisco Symphony."
In addition to his wife, Maria Leone Alessi, of San Rafael , and his sons, Joseph, of Nyack, N.Y., and Ralph, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Alessi is survived by two grandchildren.
San Francisco Chronicle (CA) - December 29, 2004
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