Herb Pomeroy- the master of Jazz passes

If I had to pick one person who taught me the most about music and about life in general it would have to be Herb Pomeroy. Herb was a master at so many different things. His mastery of the art of Jazz improvisation was a magical thing, he may not have had the greatest chops in the world but I've never heard anyone improvise like Herb.
Because he was also a master composer and arranger he developed his solos like symphonies. Every phrase was related to the phase before it
and after it. He was a person who had high standards of personal integrity, this was also reflected in his music. His music was real, it contained real emotions that he wasn't afraid to reveal to others. He was always fresh, because improvising to him meant creating new ideas in the moment. He didn't let himself fall back on licks and patterns, every note he played had to fit perfectly with what was happening at that moment. Aside from his mastery of everything musical, the thing about him that never ceased to amaze me was the way he led a band. He had a total mastery of psychology which allowed him to get each musician in his band to do exactly what he wanted. He took a totally different approach with everyone according to their temperament. With some guys he was a hard-ass, with others he would subtly suggest to them what he wanted. He knew how to get the very best out of each person. He made you want to work as hard as you could for him because he always worked the hardest out of everyone in the band. Herb was the modern day Duke Ellington, and he knew Duke's music better than anyone alive. Like Duke Herb knew how to write for individuals, not just instruments. He knew all the strengths and weaknesses of every player in his band and he made allowances for everything. Like Duke he had a magnanimous personality that inspired love and devotion from his musicians.

I spent three years with Herb, at least four hours a week, and sometimes more if I was in one of his small combos or in his line writing band. He taught me that music was deathly serious and it is worth your entire focus, commitment and concentration. It was not to be taken lightly and he certainly did not put up with people who did. He also taught me that music is something that is so wonderful that it's worth dedicating one's entire life to. It is an honor and a high privilege to have known Herb and to have played music with him. He was one of the last of the true living masters of Jazz.


Don't Blame Me- Bird at Storyville w/Herb Pomeroy

Gloucester native Herb Pomeroy a jazz giant who passed gift of music to others

By Douglas A. Moser , Staff writer
Gloucester Daily Times

He never let any of his students or colleagues forget that making music is a joy and a privilege.

Judging from his own maxim and the testimony of those close to him, Irving "Herb" Pomeroy III crafted himself an existence of joy and did what he could to share it with the world around him, whether it be music or life itself.

The renowned jazz trumpeter and teacher, Gloucester born and raised, died at his home on Rust Island on Saturday afternoon after a series of bouts with cancer. He was 77.

A celebration of Pomeroy's life and music will be held at 3 p.m. Sept. 9 at Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street in Boston.

"As a daughter I appreciated him being the Rock of Gibraltar, and it's eye-opening to me at this point how far-reaching his effect was," Perry Pomeroy, 49 of Hamilton, said. "I knew that he was loved, that wasn't a surprise. It was the intimacy he offered to people everywhere. He was capable of global intimacy somehow."

Guitarist Anthony Weller said Sunday, before playing a concert at Stage Fort Park leading the Herb Pomeroy Trio in its namesake's stead, that Pomeroy's influence touched a generation of musicians while he taught at Berklee School of Music in Boston, directed the Festival Jazz Ensemble at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and played shows for decades both locally and around the world.

A jazz star while still in his early 20s, Pomeroy played trumpet with the Charlie Parker Quintet in Boston in the early 1950s and blew trumpet and flugelhorn with the likes of jazz legends such as Lionel Hampton and Stan Kenton and the Duke Ellington Orchestras. He backed vocalists Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dionne Warwick and Sarah Vaughn. And his successful students, to name a very few, include jazz luminaries Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton and Joshua Redman, Weller said.

Musicians around the world, upon hearing of Pomeroy's recent ill turn of health, sent dozens upon dozens of cards wishing him well and a speedy recovery. Family members said they have received cards and letters from those he taught, those he played with, and "we're not just talking people he was close to, but guys he taught at MIT 30 years ago that are writing these and talking about how he so affected their lives and his influence on them," said son Eden Pomeroy.

Roughly 25 cards have been arriving daily, he said, and 35 came yesterday.

Eden and Perry Pomeroy remember a father first, however, and a musician and teacher, busy engaging the globe, second.

"No matter what was going on, my lunch money would appear on my dresser every night, no matter how late he was working," Perry Pomeroy said. "It was one of the little things that meant so much. He was always there. He was very good at taking care of business for us."

Eden Pomeroy, 41 and now living in Florida, recalled summer camping and fishing trips to northern New Hampshire, playing catch to practice for Little League baseball and going to Red Sox and Bruins games.

"We did the stuff that didn't have to do with music, which I cherish because he was so busy," he said. "That's what I love about my dad. We had a relationship that was separate from all the hoopla."

Neither Eden, a sales representative, nor Perry, an art teacher, delved deeply into music. Eden Pomeroy said he played the clarinet as a youngster, but gave it up - without resistance from his father.

"He allowed me to do what I wanted to do," he said. "I played clarinet by my own choice, and when I didn't like it any more, I stopped."

Eden suspects that mentality came from Herb Pomeroy's own upbringing, where his grandfather and father, both dentists named Irving H. Pomeroy, groomed him to follow their professional path. After three years at Gloucester High School, Irving H. the Third transferred to Williston Academy in East Hampton to prepare for college and graduated in 1949.

Herb Pomeroy spent one year at Harvard University and left, both the school and the chosen path, to join with the Parker Quintet in Boston.

His love of music, Perry Pomeroy said, came from his mother, Alice, a semiprofessional pianist.

"He was also exposed to Louis Armstrong at a young age, probably also from his mother, and he was blessed with extraordinary talent," Perry Pomeroy said. "It was those three things."

Shortly after, he formed his own band, the Herb Pomeroy Big Band, and traveled the United States to play in Boston, New York, New Orleans and other jazz hot spots.

In 1955, Pomeroy started teaching at Schillinger House, which would become Berklee School of Music, in Boston and stayed on the faculty for 40 years.

"He had the soul of the music in his heart when he played," said Ken Pullig, chairman of the jazz composition department at Berklee, and a former student of Pomeroy's. "Herb was the iconic Berklee figure for many years."

Pomeroy married his first wife, Betty, a jazz singer from Columbus, Ga., in 1957.

His musical stature grew, and in 1963, MIT asked Pomeroy to salvage its jazz ensemble. He joined as the director of the Festival Jazz Ensemble, drawing interest and talent and turned the struggling band into a global award winner. He remained there until 1985.

He was inducted into the International Association of Jazz Educators Hall of Fame in 1996, and into the Down Beat Jazz Education Hall of Fame the following year.

Pomeroy winterized the family's summer home on Rust Island in 1986 and moved from Brookline, where the family had lived during the winters, to live in Gloucester full-time.

"He never lost his connection to Gloucester and what it meant to him," Perry Pomeroy said. "He was born there, he spent most of his life there, and that's where he wanted to be when he died."

Anne Strong, a lifetime Rust Island resident who had been the Pomeroys' neighbor since Herb and Betty, who died in 1982, bought the home in 1968, said she will miss hearing him warming up before leaving for a gig.

"I grew up with his children," she said. "Once I saw him play in Copley Square with his big band when I was 12. Afterward, being very much the smart alec, I asked him for an autograph. He found a piece of paper and a pen and signed it, 'Eden's father.'"

Pomeroy remarried in 1991, wedding Dorothy "Dodie" Gibbons, originally of Buffalo, N.Y.

Just after he moved back to Gloucester, he started playing concerts in Stage Fort Park, a tradition that continued to the day after his death, when Weller, the guitarist in the Herb Pomeroy Trio, led a tribute. Pomeroy used his talent to raise money for community organizations and benefits.

"He was generous, with his continuing to help, whether it's the Cape Ann Historical Society, going into the schools, playing local restaurants," said Mayor John Bell, whose family was close to Pomeroy. "He shared his professionalism, his creativity and his talent with the community."

Besides music, his children said Herb Pomeroy was an avid sports fan, and while he loved the Red Sox, the Inter-Town Baseball League and Gloucester High School football were more dear.

"After I moved to Florida, when I'd talk to him on the phone, he'd give me updates on how the Fishermen were doing," Eden Pomeroy said.

As salaries and egos spiraled ever upward in baseball, Perry Pomeroy said her father preferred the amateur league for its integrity, for athletes playing for the sport as opposed to the money or fame.

"Gloucester High School football, Inter-Town Baseball, he found those to be sports in the purest form," she said.

Harold "Bucky" Rogers, president of Cape Ann Savings Bank, which helped sponsor the Stage Fort Park concerts, recalled Pomeroy's love for and encyclopedic knowledge of the Red Sox, and of his disillusionment with the direction the sport took.

"I remember him talking about the large salaries the professional players made, and then how he enjoyed going to the Inter-Town League and watching baseball at its purest," he said.