Herb Pomeroy - Performing Career

Performing Career

Herb Pomeroy studied dentistry at Harvard University for a year but dropped out to pursue his jazz career. Charlie Parker liked Pomeroy's playing and hired him frequently when the alto saxophonist performed at Boston's Hi-Hat and Storyville clubs. Pomeroy also played with Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, and Serge Chaloff, among other jazz musicians. After his experience as a sideman in the big bands of Hampton and Kenton (separated by a five-month stint at leading his own 13-piece band in the early 1950s), Pomeroy put together a big band that drew national attention in the late 1950s in a Boston club called the Stable. He led the band from 1957 through the mid-1960s and intermittently until 1993. During that time, and afterward, he led additional small groups ranging typically from duo (usually with bassist John Repucci) to quintet. His big band played in Carnegie Hall and established series such as the Newport Jazz Festival on the same bill with Benny Goodman, Ellington, and other major jazz figures. Pomeroy also backed up several singers, including Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, Irene Kral, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra. He became noted as a master of music theory and musical form. Pomeroy's playing exhibited a limited upper range on the trumpet, but his extraordinary improvisational resources counteracted that limitation. Gradually during the mid-1990s, as Pomeroy performed more frequently with small groups, he abandoned the trumpet for the flugelhorn.

Although Herb Pomeroy is generally remembered as a music educator, his first love was performing as a trumpeter. He ranked leading a band and teaching music second and third, respectively, in his hierarchy of passions. He was not enthusiastic about recordings, always emphasizing that jazz is a music that must be witnessed in person. A good example of such an incident can be found in the Berklee video archives. The video documents an October 31, 2005 Friend Hall panel session on jazz in Boston at mid-century. At one point the panel was asked what the best recordings of jazz in Boston in the 1950s are. Several people offered suggestions. Finally, in apparent frustration, Herb told everyone to take all of the recommended recordings (most which featured Pomeroy) "and throw them away." Instead, he suggested that all people in attendance go out to clubs and "see live jazz."