Who knew there were so many bands on the North Shore? It seems that 98-year-old trombonist Jim McCulloch belongs to most of them.
“Jim is a very good musician, he is precise,” says one of his musical colleagues, “and he can really rip it out in a solo, but only if asked. He’s also modest.”
Jim was between rehearsals on the day of our interview. In the morning, the Ambleside Brass Quintet assembled at his home for their weekly session. In the evening, he rehearsed with the West Vancouver Community Band. The week includes rehearsals with The Milleraires Big Band and the Ambleside Orchestra. “That’s Ambleside Symphony Orchestra,” he specifies.
He performs with the Brock House Big Band at seniors’ residences and hospitals. The Sentimental Journeys band he belongs to plays summertime concerts at Knox United Church in Vancouver.
Jim practises every night, usually with a glass of Johnny Walker Black Label by his side. How do your neighbours respond, I asked? “I use a mute when I practise at night, but my neighbours say they enjoy our Monday morning rehearsals. It’s like listening to a concert,” he fires back. Saturday afternoons are reserved for jamming with fellow trombonists.
Did Jim’s age register, reader? Born in Vancouver on Jan. 20, 1920, he has been playing the trombone longer than most of his fellow musicians have been alive.
He favours Dixieland jazz, but he and his fellow musicians can swing from Beiderbecke to Bach to Beethoven. Asked to name his favourite types of music, he laughs and asks how much space I’ll have to list it all.
He mentions a tune called “Gather Ye Lip Rouge While Ye May,” recorded by Joe Venuti & His Orchestra in 1933. At 13 years of age, Jim may not have known he was listening to Joe Venuti on the radio while at home in Kitsilano. As Jim’s musical interests grew, he travelled the jazz trails blazed by Bix Beiderbecke and Benny Goodman, and there he discovered Venuti who is considered the father of the jazz violin. Perhaps he was an early influence on the young and budding musician?
One does not live for 98 years without travelling many different roads and collecting a few memories along the way. Jim is no exception.
In 1926, the year Queen Elizabeth II was born, Jim decided they would be getting married one day. In 1927, he was with his father in the Ilo Ilo Theatre in Cumberland, watching the newsreel of the Dempsey-Tunney fight, the famous rematch known as the Long Count Fight.
The family returned to Vancouver later that year. In the course of time, the Queen, who was then but a princess, faded from his dreams and a lifelong relationship with music was on the horizon. When Jim enrolled at Point Grey Junior High, his mother wanted her son to play trumpet in the school band, but conductor Arthur Delamont nixed that notion.
The school was one of several feeder schools around the city where Delamont conducted the school band, and directed promising students towards his pride and joy, the Kitsilano Boys Band.
“My lips were the wrong shape for the trumpet, he told my mother. The trombone would be my instrument,” he says. “I had two lessons in his (Delamont’s) house and learned the C scale. That was it for my musical training. I learned the rest on the job.”
Jim joined the Kitsilano Youth band and also played with the dance orchestra when he got to McGee High. That band was conducted by Dal Richards, who was a couple of years ahead of him in school.
He played at UBC and back east in Welland, Ont., where the graduate in metallurgical engineering worked in the heavy metals industry. He played in various dance bands, joined the musicians’ union, and married Constance Brown in 1948.
For about 15 years, a brief time in Jim’s long life, he laid his trombone down. When he and Connie made their home in North Vancouver in 1953, Jim’s focus was on raising his family and building his career.
Of his lifelong adventure with music, Jim says: “I enjoy every band I play with. I enjoy playing my part well. I do it to grow as a musician, to continually improve and for the friendship with my fellow musicians. I’m a good player. After all this time, I bloody well should be. … My only rationale is that I’m getting better tomorrow from what I was yesterday.”
North Shore residents have two opportunities this month to enjoy the music of Jim and his fellow musicians. He performs with The Milleraires at St. Catherine’s Anglican Church on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. and with the Ambleside Orchestra on Friday, Oct. 26 at 8 p.m. at Highlands United Church.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at lander1@shaw.ca.
