Uan Rasey

Uan Rasey (August 21, 1921 Ô[][] September 26, 2011) was an American musician, best known for his studio work as a trumpet player. He was first trumpet of the MGM film studios orchestra from 1949 until the early 1970s, and performed on the soundtracks of many motion pictures. As a teacher, Rasey had a reputation as one of the most exacting and inspiring trumpet teachers of his and subsequent generations.[citation needed] Uan Rasey was born in Glasgow, Montana where his father practiced law and his mother taught piano. Following initial music studies on the violin, he became attracted to the trumpet after listening to early jazz greats including Louis Armstrong, Cootie Williams, Roy Eldridge, and others whom he heard, sometimes weekly, via national radio broadcasts that reached the remote great plains of Eastern Montana. At the age of seven, his family purchased a mail-order trumpet for him from the Montgomery Ward catalog. It came with an instruction booklet, which became his initial guide in learning to play. When he was ten, Rasey contracted polio and spent nearly a year recuperating, but did not let the disease deter him from his passion for music and the trumpet.[citation needed]