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Prime Times Man with a horn By JOHN DARLING Larry Bernard always wanted to play the valve trombone like his father did, but a career in the Marines got in the way. When he retired at 55 and moved to the Rogue Valley, Bernard saw one of the rare instruments for sale in the want ads. He bought it, shut himself in the garage and, listening to old jazz records and tapes, taught himself to play in six months. "I know it sounds like an unlikely thing to do, but I�ve just got that good ear," said Bernard, now 72. A valve trombone, nicknamed a "super-bone," allows pitch changes with either slide or valves. A direct descendant of French immigrants from Nova Scotia to New Orleans � called Cajuns � Bernard haunted Bourbon Street in his teen years, listening to live performances of such 1940s greats as Louis Prima and the Dukes of Dixieland. Then came the Korean War. As an infantryman, Bernard spent many nights in bunkers, snowed in and trying to sleep with rats scurrying about him. "In order not to go nuts, I would mentally go over, note by note, every tune I�d ever heard my father play on the trombone, until they were all burned into my mind," he said. His favorites were "Stardust," "Out of Nowhere," "Stomping at the Savoy" and anything by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, "Fats" Waller and Billie Holiday. After he�d taught himself to play, Bernard joined the Southern Oregon Jazz Society, got connected with local jazz musicians and helped form the Jazz Misfits, playing Medford Senior Center dances, ballgames at Miles Field and Medford�s Concerts in the Park. "I�ve got a lot of joy for playing jazz in our group. It�s not for the money. I just love to play and to make good friends. It�s been very bonding over the years," he said. Bernard worked a variety of jobs in the Rogue Valley, as a real estate agent, a Teamsters representative and chief of school custodians. He even took time for college, focusing on the history of jazz in the "Harlem Renaissance" of the 1930s. One morning in 1988, Bernard "just saw things happening in my imagination" about a jazz festival in Medford. With Mayor Jerry Lausmann and Patti Bills, director of the Visitors and Convention Bureau, he sparked the first Medford Jazz Jubilee, now a significant jazz and tourism event attracting thousands of people from across the region. Bernard now plays in the jazz-dance band Journey�s End, performing at the Rogue Valley Country Club, Rogue Valley Manor�s Dance Club, Standing Stone Brewery in Ashland and every Friday afternoon at the Medford Moose Lodge. He also performs with the Southern Oregon Concert Band and Billy Champion and his Champs, a Western swing band. Bernard, the father of four grown children, survived recent bouts of prostate and colon cancer, then an aneurysm. "I always think positively about things," he said, "and so far I�m doing well, plus I have a lot of support from my friends." Bernard grows wistful talking about the average age � 70s and 80s � of most jazz and swing enthusiasts. But, as he said in his faint Cajun drawl, "some things are just too good to die, and I think jazz is one of them." Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.