Multiple Grammy-nominated Trombonist Conrad Herwig is still in touch with his younger jazz self.
"Tilt," one of the pieces he’ll play at tonight’s concert at Bowling Green State University, is
the first jazz composition he ever wrote.
He was 17, a freshman at the University of North Texas.
The next year he wrote an arrangement of the standard "Body and Soul," also on tonight’s set
list.
He got a "B", he admitted to students during a Jazz Lab Band I rehearsal Thursday.
"There’s something to be said for music that you write at a younger age," Herwig said in an
interview between sessions on campus. "The first melodies and harmonies you’re pulling out the air
… stick with you."
Though the arrangement of "Body and Soul" was written 35 years ago, "it still sounds
fresh," he said
Herwig, one of the busiest and most acclaimed trombonists on the scene, will perform at 8 p.m. in
Kobacker Hall in the Moore Musical Arts Center on campus, with the university’s Jazz Lab Band I directed
by David Bixler. Tickets are $10.
Growing up in Hawaii, Herwig found his inspiration to go into jazz in Trummy Young, a well-traveled
veteran best known for his long association with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars who had retired to Hawaii.
"He was my idol," said Herwig, who studied with a couple of Young’s students.
That led him to jazz. Even before graduating from the University of North Texas, he had the chance to
play with some of the names from the swing era, including the Elgart brothers, Les and Larry, and Bob
Crosby, and for several weeks in Massachusetts, Cab Calloway.
His first steady professional job was with Clark Terry.
One of Herwig’s messages to students – beyond the plethora of technical and theoretical details – for
students, echoes what Terry told him. "There’s really only two things in jazz: There’s the truth
and then there’s everything else."
That truth is finding their own authentic musical personalities, Herwig said.
Then they have to learn how to make everyone else sound good.
Musicians "spend thousands of hours by ourselves in the practice room," he said. "But when
we go out to perform the most important thing is our connection with the other musicians."
That attitude will serve them well as professionals.
Despite the seismic changes in the business, Herwig said there’s still a living to be made in business.

The skill set has changed, he said. Now musicians have to do more than master their instruments. They
have to master technology and be cognizant of the intricacies of business.
Selling any kind of physical recording, whether a CD or vinyl record, is obsolete. Everything is
streaming. The royalties from streaming are minimal. Herwig said he can get a check for $4 or 4 cents.

Still that streaming sends his music around the world. So even if he plays a job in Mongolia people know
him.
And what they know is a musician with a high advanced technique. He articulates crisp, complex strings of
notes with the slightest slip of his slide and near effortless blowing, punctuated as the music heats up
by the occasional rip or unstated glissando.
All this at the service of finely wrought melody, embedded in all he plays. That lyrical side was on
display during a concert with BGSU’s jazz faculty ensemble Thursday, when the trombonist played a tender
rendition of McCoy Tyner’s "Search for Peace."
William Mathis, who teaches trombone, at BGSU is amazed at Herwig’s abilities.
His notes are so cleanly delivered, they could come from a trumpet or even computer, Mathis said. "I
don’t know how he does it."