by Dennis and Karen Houghton
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| Igor Stravinsky |
Imagine answering a knock on your front door to find Igor Stravinsky standing there, and he's got a question for you…about stopped horn!
You're a kid from Venice, California, growing up in the Great Depression, and you have a chronic stutter. But Southern California has opportunities: there's a big navy base in Long Beach, oil refineries in Torrance, and factory production all over the LA Basin. General Motors is building hundreds of cars per day at the South Gate factory, and Howard Hughes is building airplanes in Burbank. There is radio technology, and the movie industry is beginning to boom. There is public transportation—you can take the Pacific Electric "Red Line" from Venice to Long Beach in about 30 minutes, or Long Beach to Hollywood in about the same time.
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| P&E Line - about 1940 |
There had been lots happening in the Los Angeles music scene for years: there were the silent films produced by a number of movie studios, each having their own theaters, and each theater had its own "house orchestra." These attracted musicians from Boston and New York, Germany and even Russia. The Los Angeles Philharmonic had been founded in 1919 by millionaire William Andrews Clark (whose family fortune was made in the Montana copper mines). The Philharmonic had naturally become a hub for the LA Society elite, and they began recruiting talent and soloists from major European orchestras. Sergei Rachmaninov thrilled audiences with his piano concerti and symphonies. Although he didn't move to LA until 1942, he was a regular guest soloist. Korngold is writing the biggest movie scores, and Schoenberg emigrated in 1934 and is now teaching at UCLA. Many of these greats have escaped the rising facism in Europe, and for many there is no option to return home...and now Igor Stravinsky has come to stay!
LOS ANGELES TIMES, FEB. 21, 1935
L.A. Goes Mad for Stravinsky
“[Stravinsky] has been in Los Angeles four days and the town is agog. Only the visit of Einstein…has created as much interest. The orchestra…has literally slaved to prepare his program of suites from the Apollon Musagète, Petrouchka, Petite, and The Fire Bird precisely as he would have them.”
Stravinsky, who eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1940, continued to guest-conduct the orchestra, on occasion, at the Hollywood Bowl.
Your name is James Decker, and your parents, Ben Decker and Margaret Hapgood, had a musical variety show in which Maggie sang and performed the "glass harp," playing tunes on pitched wine glasses. There is a longer thread of musical talent too: your grandfather Hapgood was a brass band leader in England who had been presented with a silver cornet by Queen Victoria. This silver cornet was passed down and became your first instrument. Grandfather Hapgood led the "Firehouse Band" in McPherson, Kansas, after immigrating to the USA. (There's still a band shell at the park in McPherson, but the small town can no longer support a community band.) In your early teens, you played that cornet, accompanying your mom on radio broadcasts.
James “Jim” Decker switched from cornet to the horn at the age of 16 at the request of his school orchestra director. About this time, Jim had the good fortune to meet and study under James Stagliano, the new principal horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who had arrived from the St. Louis Symphony in 1935. At 17, Jim played in one of FDR's depression era work programs, the "National Youth Administration Orchestra" under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. Jim was also a member of the Long Beach Community Orchestra and the Peter Meremblum Youth Orchestra.
Jim performed Oberon at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles when he was 19. Afterward, when the other musicians raved about his finesse in the delicate opening bars, Jim replied wryly, "I tried to start that note three times before it spoke!"
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| The Wilshire Ebell Theater |
When the US entered WWII, Jim wanted to serve in the military, but due to a perforated right eardrum he couldn't pass the army physical. However, his "draft deferment" presented other unique musical opportunities: he played in the National Symphony in Washington DC in 1942-43, then back to Los Angeles for a stint with the LA Phil in 1943-44. These were still the days when the "audition" would have consisted of playing for the conductor in his dressing room—or possibly even receiving an offer without an audition, simply based on reputation or referral by a teacher or colleague. There was a downside to this system too: many conductors were tyrannical, and a player could be fired on the spot.
Jim and others, including Vince De Rosa, Gale Robinson, and Richard Perisi recorded newsreel, movie, and radio broadcasts as their contribution to the war effort. With so much recording going on, Jim played on soundtracks for wartime pictures starring Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Stewart, and Humphrey Bogart. Due to the nature of the contracts with the various studios, Jim likely wouldn't have known the movie title or the actors involved. He would say, "In those days, you just showed up to the call and played what was on the stand." Jim played the post-war 1946-47 season with the Kansas City Symphony, but moved back to LA for good after that year. He "auditioned" for the principal horn chair at Columbia Studios by recording a sound track. His former teacher, James Stagliano, didn't want to play a concert and asked Jim to play principal horn. This was his introduction to Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky, conducting Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and The Firebird Suite, respectively.
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| The Tryon Road home as it looks today. |
The 1950s brought a post-war recession as the country was flooded with returning service members. But as these folks bought homes and started families, the economy boomed and so did the birth rates...Baby Boom! By now, Jim had become a first call hornist under contract with Columbia, Fox, Paramount, and CBS television, and later Disney studios. He was playing as many as three or four sessions per day, and was able to buy a home in the Hollywood hills. The elaborate Mediterranean revival home on Tryon road became known as "The Castle."
In 1962 Jim got the invitation to record Firebird under Igor Stravinsky on the Columbia Masterworks label. "The highlight of my career," according to Jim, "was playing principal under Stravinsky in many of his most famous works." According to Stravinsky’s assistant Robert Craft, Jim was one of three orchestra musicians most favored and requested by Stravinsky. It was at this Tryon Road house where Mr. Stravinsky knocked on the door: his respect for Jim's judgement and musicianship was absolute.
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| James Decker with "the Maestro" circa 1963 |
So, the "knock at the door" didn't happen by chance. There was certainly talent, a bit of luck, and being in the right place at the right time.
What Karen and I (and, certainly, all of Jim's colleagues and students) remember best was his passion for teaching, his emotional connection to the music, and his congeniality. He was blessed with both talent and opportunity. He wanted to pass along his knowledge and wisdom, and to encourage all who followed him. Our friend Milton Kicklighter, now retired from the Buffalo Philharmonic, said it best: "Jim was a very famous hornist that made the rest of us horn players feel his equal."
