In 1968 Bobby Hackett arrived in San Antonio to record with our band, and as he unpacked, out came a shiny Getzen cornet. With thanks & best wishes, Bobby Hackett." Portrait of Bobby Hackett holding his Getzen cornet. During all that time Getzen more or less took over what there was of the American cornet market. Getzen made up a large bore model just for me and I was a Getzen “artist” and advocate for 25 years. The Getzen’s design was influenced by a rare 1950s Conn cornet and by the French Besson, and I always thought the designer had been both smart and lucky. Sandy pushed a new Getzen cornet into my hand and bingo, I had a new lover. I would probably have been happy to play the French Besson for the rest of my days had not the Landing audience one night contained Sandy Sandberg, sales manager for the newly organized Getzen Co. These cornets were beautifully engraved and silvered and each came with a case made of genuine alligator. So I was off with my beautiful French Besson and it wasn’t long until, to my delight, I discovered that one of my idols, Bobby Hackett, was playing this same cornet and had used it on his famed Coast Concert recording.
All were large bore (467 thousandths of an inch), and many consider them among the greatest cornets of all time. Byron, an expert, saw to it that all the Bessons were silver plated and that all the valves were lapped perfectly. The entire collection was sent to cornet virtuoso Byron Autrey at Michigan State. Bruno and Sons was seriously in the French Besson cornet business. As the shop owner counted out the change, Ed asked “Why would anyone make a lamp out of such a great instrument?” “Oh that,” came the reply, “I have twenty-four of those cornets in the basement and can’t sell them, so I finally started making lamps. Ed rushed in and purchased the lamp with the intention of scrapping the lamp portion and saving the great cornet. The story goes that Ed Sonfield, owner of Bruno, was strolling on a Paris street one day in the late 1950s when in amazement he was stopped in his tracks as a cornet lamp was grouped with other oddities in a window display at a small store. I could only say “wow” and repeated it several times, for to this day I’ve never seen a more beautiful cornet. “You know," he said slowly, “if you like these short cornets, you should see what we just received,” and with that he whipped out the French Besson. He went “mm, mm, mm” and then “yum, yum” as he studied my old horn. I had briefly met Fred Hoy, absolute ruler at C. Bruno and Sons San Antonio office and came face to face with a brand new French Besson Brevette cornet. The negotiated price had been $7.īut now I had my eye on a new horn, as one day I walked into the C. Bruno and Sons model that I purchased from a San Antonio pawn shop. The original had served me well-a 1910 C. After about two years of fascinated blowing with my first cornet, I began to think of a new horn.
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