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The Perfect Tuba: Forging Fulfillment from the Bass Horn, Band, and Hard Work
From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Sam Quinones, the story of a demanding instrument, the determined people who play it, and the hope they offer a fractured nation.
"[A] delightfully offbeat book with unexpectedly profound overtones."-The Wall Street Journal
The tuba's sound is mighty, emerging, it seems, from deep in the human body. Very little music has, up until recently, been written to play to its strengths. The best the tuba seems to promise is a seat at the back of the band. No stadium shows, no Internet adulation. And yet, this horn-the youngest of all brass instruments-has captured the hearts of an inspired group of musicians ever since its invention in 1835.
In The Perfect Tuba, Sam Quinones embarks on a trek to get to know American tubists. He tells the astounding stories of two men who set out to replicate the “perfect tuba,” an instrument made by York & Sons in the 1930s and never since equaled; of Big Bill Bell, whose 1950s album rearranged the tuba landscape; and of Arnold Jacobs, a tuba guru at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who studied the physiology of breathing and offered rune-like nuggets of wisdom to his legions of students. Quinones also takes us through the tuba scenes of New Orleans, Orlando, Knoxville, New York City, and, most importantly, Roma, Texas, a dusty town in the Rio Grande Valley where a visionary high school marching band director fashioned a program that now regularly wins state championships and sends its students off to college.
After nearly a decade on the front lines of America's battle with drug addiction, Sam Quinones delivers another story of our nation, this time brought together by the transformative power of shared joy and humble achievement.
"[A] delightfully offbeat book with unexpectedly profound overtones."-The Wall Street Journal
The tuba's sound is mighty, emerging, it seems, from deep in the human body. Very little music has, up until recently, been written to play to its strengths. The best the tuba seems to promise is a seat at the back of the band. No stadium shows, no Internet adulation. And yet, this horn-the youngest of all brass instruments-has captured the hearts of an inspired group of musicians ever since its invention in 1835.
In The Perfect Tuba, Sam Quinones embarks on a trek to get to know American tubists. He tells the astounding stories of two men who set out to replicate the “perfect tuba,” an instrument made by York & Sons in the 1930s and never since equaled; of Big Bill Bell, whose 1950s album rearranged the tuba landscape; and of Arnold Jacobs, a tuba guru at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who studied the physiology of breathing and offered rune-like nuggets of wisdom to his legions of students. Quinones also takes us through the tuba scenes of New Orleans, Orlando, Knoxville, New York City, and, most importantly, Roma, Texas, a dusty town in the Rio Grande Valley where a visionary high school marching band director fashioned a program that now regularly wins state championships and sends its students off to college.
After nearly a decade on the front lines of America's battle with drug addiction, Sam Quinones delivers another story of our nation, this time brought together by the transformative power of shared joy and humble achievement.
- GenresMusicHistoryNonfiction
372 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 30, 2025
45 people are currently reading
2152 people want to read
About the author
Sam Quinones
16 books539 followersSam Quinones is a long-time journalist and author of 3 books of narrative nonfiction.
He worked for the LA Times for 10 years. He spent 10 years before that as a freelance journalist in Mexico.
His first book is True Tales from Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and the Bronx, published in 2001, a collection of nonfiction stories about drag queens, popsicle-makers, Oaxacan basketball players, telenovela stars, gunmen, migrants, and slain narco-balladeer, Chalino Sanchez.
In 2007, he published Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration. In this volume he tells stories of the Henry Ford of velvet painting, opera singers in Tijuana, the Tomato King of Jerez, Zacatecas, the stories of a young construction worker heading north, and Quinones' own encounter with the narco-Mennonites of Chihuahua.
His third book was released in 2015. Dreamland: the True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic recounts twin tales of drug market in the 21st Century. A pharmaceutical company markets its new painkiller as "virtually nonaddictive" just as heroin traffickers from a small town in Mexico devise a system of selling heroin retail, like pizza. The result is the beginning of America's latest drug scourge, and the resurgence of heroin across the country.
The book has received rave reviews in Salon.com, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, American Conservative, Kirkus Review, and National Public Radio.
Amazon readers gave Dreamland 4.7 stars and called it "a masterpiece" and "a thriller."
"I couldn't put it down," said one. Said another: "This book tells one of the most important stories of our time."
Following Antonio's Gun, the San Francisco Chronicle called Quinones "the most original American writer on Mexico and the border out there."
He has done numerous Skype sessions with book groups that have chosen his books to read.
Quinones also writes True Tales: A Reporter's Blog, at his website, http://www.samquinones.com.
For several years, he has given writing workshops called Tell Your True Tale. Most recently the workshops have taken place at East Los Angeles Public Library, from which have emerged three volumes of true stories by new authors from the community.
For more information, go to http://www.colapublib.org/tytt/.
He worked for the LA Times for 10 years. He spent 10 years before that as a freelance journalist in Mexico.
His first book is True Tales from Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and the Bronx, published in 2001, a collection of nonfiction stories about drag queens, popsicle-makers, Oaxacan basketball players, telenovela stars, gunmen, migrants, and slain narco-balladeer, Chalino Sanchez.
In 2007, he published Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration. In this volume he tells stories of the Henry Ford of velvet painting, opera singers in Tijuana, the Tomato King of Jerez, Zacatecas, the stories of a young construction worker heading north, and Quinones' own encounter with the narco-Mennonites of Chihuahua.
His third book was released in 2015. Dreamland: the True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic recounts twin tales of drug market in the 21st Century. A pharmaceutical company markets its new painkiller as "virtually nonaddictive" just as heroin traffickers from a small town in Mexico devise a system of selling heroin retail, like pizza. The result is the beginning of America's latest drug scourge, and the resurgence of heroin across the country.
The book has received rave reviews in Salon.com, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, American Conservative, Kirkus Review, and National Public Radio.
Amazon readers gave Dreamland 4.7 stars and called it "a masterpiece" and "a thriller."
"I couldn't put it down," said one. Said another: "This book tells one of the most important stories of our time."
Following Antonio's Gun, the San Francisco Chronicle called Quinones "the most original American writer on Mexico and the border out there."
He has done numerous Skype sessions with book groups that have chosen his books to read.
Quinones also writes True Tales: A Reporter's Blog, at his website, http://www.samquinones.com.
For several years, he has given writing workshops called Tell Your True Tale. Most recently the workshops have taken place at East Los Angeles Public Library, from which have emerged three volumes of true stories by new authors from the community.
For more information, go to http://www.colapublib.org/tytt/.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 23, 2025
I’m not a musician, but luckily that isn’t required of the reader. This book is a collection of stories about tuba players, makers, sellers, and lovers, and about band directors and music educators. Each story honors the passion and discipline that goes into playing great music, and the community that forms around it. On the cover, it’s about a pair of tubas known as “the perfect tubas.” But inside, it’s really about art, creativity, passion, and the sacrifice that creates something beautiful.
Some of the best books I’ve encountered in my adult life were consumed in airports during travel delays, and this fits that mold. Maybe there’s just something about sitting in a plane on the ground for multiple hours, but I’m pretty sure this is a really great book.
Some of the best books I’ve encountered in my adult life were consumed in airports during travel delays, and this fits that mold. Maybe there’s just something about sitting in a plane on the ground for multiple hours, but I’m pretty sure this is a really great book.
November 27, 2025
There is a great quote in here: "Strangeness is your friend; sameness is your enemy."
I didn’t expect a book about tuba players to articulate the struggle against Modernity so succinctly.
I didn’t expect a book about tuba players to articulate the struggle against Modernity so succinctly.
November 11, 2025
I really loved this book. I am not a tuba player, but played in band from elementary school to high school. This book is more than about the tuba, it is about band and music education and the tuba. It had me really wanting to take out my own instruments and play.
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November 11, 2025A rambling somewhat biographical narrative not only about the York CC tubas, but people important to the tuba world and really the band world at large. I think this is a pretty optimistic outlook on our field from a rambling Atlantic-style writer, whose main expertise is writing about the opioid crisis.
To say that tuba playing (or learning music) is the opposite of addiction (i.e., requires delayed gratification, hard work, patience) neglects all the tuba players who are serious alcoholics, though he briefly mentions that, or the brutal competition and audition circuits, which leave many on different careers paths, lives sidelined or ruined because of a near-psychotic commitment to achieving one of maybe 20 positions amongst a field of hundreds.
All that said, I definitely took inspiration from the stories about the professional players who had something to say and loved doing their craft. I've read Song & Wind, but it's probably a good time to revisit that.
Frankly, I would have loved a bit of a "crunchier" book about instrument development, but understand that such a book would not be widely marketable.
TL;DR, if you're not a musician, this is an acceptable, if not optimistic, introduction into the world of low brass.
To say that tuba playing (or learning music) is the opposite of addiction (i.e., requires delayed gratification, hard work, patience) neglects all the tuba players who are serious alcoholics, though he briefly mentions that, or the brutal competition and audition circuits, which leave many on different careers paths, lives sidelined or ruined because of a near-psychotic commitment to achieving one of maybe 20 positions amongst a field of hundreds.
All that said, I definitely took inspiration from the stories about the professional players who had something to say and loved doing their craft. I've read Song & Wind, but it's probably a good time to revisit that.
Frankly, I would have loved a bit of a "crunchier" book about instrument development, but understand that such a book would not be widely marketable.
TL;DR, if you're not a musician, this is an acceptable, if not optimistic, introduction into the world of low brass.
November 14, 2025
I was a tuba player in junior high and high school. I’m also a fan of Sam Quinones’s previous works on the opioid crisis. His storytelling is compelling and I enjoyed reading about the quest to recreate the York sound set against the growth of band and tuba in Texas. Makes me want to find a tuba of my own and relearn to play.
December 11, 2025
I started out with mixed feelings on this book and generally this topic because it's so unique. Just like one of the main lessons of this book, the delayed gratification of it's conclusion was well worth it. I think the author did a good job finding and sharing so many unique individual stories while balancing the timeline and theme very well. Starting with the lore of the "perfect tuba" then intertwining it with people's stories.
Quinones has written mostly about the opioid epidemic and I appreciated his well timed tie backs to how a seemingly mundane topic about a brass instrument is actually representative of something larger. How in a world of instant gratification, the strongest of passions come from long and hard work with postponed gratification. I really liked page 305 where he references the irreplaceable knowledge that comes with a lifetime worth of tiny steps and trial and error to slowly hone a skill. This relates to me in so many areas as I grow and try to find myself in this world.
Also fun anecdote, I was at a very small antique sale looking at woodworking hand tools and there was a man selling brass instruments, mostly trumpets. He starts chatting us up and was teasing us about buying one. Obviously I was never going to buy one but told him I was reading this book. We chat a bit more and it turns out he works for the manufacturer that bought Zig's tools here in Kansas City! (this was before I got to the part in the book that said Zig's tool were sold to a company in KC also). Outside the themes and motifs of this book, reading about tubas was well worth it because I got to relate and met someone I would've never before.
Quinones has written mostly about the opioid epidemic and I appreciated his well timed tie backs to how a seemingly mundane topic about a brass instrument is actually representative of something larger. How in a world of instant gratification, the strongest of passions come from long and hard work with postponed gratification. I really liked page 305 where he references the irreplaceable knowledge that comes with a lifetime worth of tiny steps and trial and error to slowly hone a skill. This relates to me in so many areas as I grow and try to find myself in this world.
Also fun anecdote, I was at a very small antique sale looking at woodworking hand tools and there was a man selling brass instruments, mostly trumpets. He starts chatting us up and was teasing us about buying one. Obviously I was never going to buy one but told him I was reading this book. We chat a bit more and it turns out he works for the manufacturer that bought Zig's tools here in Kansas City! (this was before I got to the part in the book that said Zig's tool were sold to a company in KC also). Outside the themes and motifs of this book, reading about tubas was well worth it because I got to relate and met someone I would've never before.
December 15, 2025
This is a love letter to music and musicians, school bands and their directors, music teachers and their students, and the much maligned and often underrated tuba. The tuba, it turns out, is the rhythm and soul of a band or an orchestra. If the tuba is off, the whole ensemble is off. It takes a certain person to play a tuba; a person who does not want to be the center of attention, who doesn't want to be rich or famous, a person who probably couldn't afford to buy or rent an instrument in school so was directed to a free, big brass instrument bolted to a desk. It's a quirky, historically "new" instrument with an outsized sound, form, and weight — an instrument that frequently chooses people rather than people choosing it. For those who play it, it's often a means to self awareness, confidence, and belonging.
You definitely feel the passion for the tuba in this book, even if the narration hops around a bit. We are invited into the tuba kingdom, aka "tubadom". We get to know well-known tuba teachers/evangelists, famed tuba musicians ("tubists"), tuba designers and manufacturers, and valiant public school band leaders who create community and change teen lives for the better. Any school superintendent who reads this book may finish it realizing the extreme important of music (and the arts) in schools and immediately dig up the funding for it. The arts, along with the standard school curriculum, build a whole person who thinks expansively, expresses their hopes and fears, and perhaps most importantly, strives for something bigger than themselves. If a tuba can help do that, then let's bolt more to student desks.
You definitely feel the passion for the tuba in this book, even if the narration hops around a bit. We are invited into the tuba kingdom, aka "tubadom". We get to know well-known tuba teachers/evangelists, famed tuba musicians ("tubists"), tuba designers and manufacturers, and valiant public school band leaders who create community and change teen lives for the better. Any school superintendent who reads this book may finish it realizing the extreme important of music (and the arts) in schools and immediately dig up the funding for it. The arts, along with the standard school curriculum, build a whole person who thinks expansively, expresses their hopes and fears, and perhaps most importantly, strives for something bigger than themselves. If a tuba can help do that, then let's bolt more to student desks.
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December 28, 2025p.13: "They also showed me the connection between what kids learn playing the tuba and what they learn in band: focus, patience, perseverance, and sacrifice, all through working with others, yet without so much of the glory, and perhaps without the privilege, accorded to athletes. Maybe that's what made band and the tuba fundamentally healthy pursuits---you did it because you learned that you loved it."
p.44, about a legendary teacher of band directors at VanderCook College of Music: "The sum total of H. E. Nutt's more than forty years of musical life was contained in two hundred pages, now conserved online, each page concisely packed with his accumulated wisdom regarding band and choral directing, or fingering tests for saxophone and clarinet, or '101 discussion topics for band clinics'..."
This seems to be that archive: "The H.E. Nutt Papers (VanderCook College of Music)", via the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI).
I should certainly look over these, as I try to teach my own kids' middle school band with no formal training as a band director myself...
p.71: Mentions another book, Rhapsody in Red: How Classical Music Became Chinese, which sounds fascinating.
p.44, about a legendary teacher of band directors at VanderCook College of Music: "The sum total of H. E. Nutt's more than forty years of musical life was contained in two hundred pages, now conserved online, each page concisely packed with his accumulated wisdom regarding band and choral directing, or fingering tests for saxophone and clarinet, or '101 discussion topics for band clinics'..."
This seems to be that archive: "The H.E. Nutt Papers (VanderCook College of Music)", via the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI).
I should certainly look over these, as I try to teach my own kids' middle school band with no formal training as a band director myself...
p.71: Mentions another book, Rhapsody in Red: How Classical Music Became Chinese, which sounds fascinating.
November 18, 2025
This was an odd book for me. I have a friend who I have coffee with on Fridays and he is a tuba player. I also have come to enjoy Norteno music which often has a tuba as part of the ensemble. I found Quinones' book online and it turned out to be an interesting cul-de-sac. The book traces the history of the Tuba and then presents some interesting stories about how the Tuba actually works and what defines a "perfect" tuba. Finally if offers vignettes of major tuba players (Tuba Fats and others who I actually saw in the Sacramento Jazz Festival) and band directors who developed great tuba players. I especially liked the chapters on the niche in the Rio Grande Valley where the tuba became a place to promote opportunities.
November 11, 2025
This book highlights not just the tuba but awesome band directors. High school band directors
work tirelessly. They provide kids with community. Kudos to Sam Quinones for spotlighting these unsung heroes.
work tirelessly. They provide kids with community. Kudos to Sam Quinones for spotlighting these unsung heroes.
November 12, 2025
Fascinating. I read his previous book titled Dreamland. He is just a very good writer. Fascinating quirky book. I loved it especially since I played trumpet in marching band when I was in high school. Very good read. Hopeful.
October 26, 2025
Inspirational dedication of tuba players and school/college band conductors have benefited so many young lives. And the tuba - what a foundation for orchestras and bands!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews