by Douglas Yeo (May 31, 2025)

I’ve been playing the serpent—the musical instrument, not the reptile—since 1994. I’ve told the story of how I came to play the serpent—in recitals, chamber music groups, in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in early music groups—in many places at many times. Including on The Last Trombone : HERE, HERE, and HERE. And you can hear me play the serpent in a recital I gave in 2022 at Wheaton College, Illinois. Click HERE to hear me perform Clifford Bevan’s Variations on “The Pesky Sarpent” for serpent and piano. The serpent has brought me connections with music and musicians I never would have crossed paths with had I confined my musical interests to the trombone.

Organist Joseph Balistreri with the Missa Sicca Schola Cantorum, University of Notre Dame, April 27, 2015.

For example, when organist Joseph Balistreri gave a recital on April 27, 2025 at in the Basilica at University of Notre Dame, he contacted me and asked if I could play serpent on the concert. I was happy to do so, to play some seventeenth-century chant with the Missa Sicca Schola Cantorum. Click HERE and you’ll be directed to a page with information about Joseph’s recital along with a link to the livestream recording and the program.

I’ve written widely about the serpent (including a book about the instrument, Serpents, Bass Horns, and Ophicleides in the Bate Collection, published by University of Oxford in 2019) and I’ve collected many photographs, postcards, and original works of art that depict the serpent. For many years, I’ve been aware of a photograph of the great jazz trumpet player, Dizzy Gillespie, playing a serpent. I’ve seen a few low quality scans of the photograph in various places on the internet, but I like to see both context and size of images. Once I learned that the photo appeared in the December 29, 1955 issue of JET magazine, I kept my eye out for a copy of that issue.

The cover of the December 29, 1955 issue of JET magazine.

Last week, I found one. JET was a magazine published between 1951 through 2016 for the African American community. The magazine was a mix of photos, commentary, and news, and when I opened my mail the other day and held the issue in my hands, smiled. I had not imagined the magazine was so small – only 6 inches by 4 inches.

The copy of JET that I purchased had suffered damage. The two staples that held the issue together had rusted and that rust bled throughout the center of the magazine’s pages. But the photo of Dizzy Gillespie, happily, was not affected by the rust. And there he was, on page 32. I think this is a terrific photo, something completely outside the box.

Pages 32 and 33 of the December 29, 1955 issue of JET magazine.

Dizzy Gillespie playing a serpent, from the December 29, 1955 issue of JET magazine.

I don’t have anything to add to this photo than what is in the caption. The Odd Horn Shop is no longer in New York City and Dizzy Gillespie died in 1993. But I’ll relate this story of my one encounter with the great jazz player with the bent trumpet . . .

In 1991, Dizzy Gillespie was given an honorary doctorate at New England Conservatory of Music. I was serving on the Conservatory’s faculty at the time, and I was also Chair of the Conservatory’s Brass and Percussion Department. I attended the commencement ceremony that year, and from my seat on stage in Jordan Hall at NEC, Dizzy Gillespie was only a few feet away from me. Then his name was called, Gillespie went to the front of the platform and received his honorary degree and said a few words. But what happened next was something I’ll never forget. Whenever a jazz major came forward to receive his degree, Dizzy Gillespie—one of the greatest musicians in the world—stood up, went up the the graduate, shook hands, and posed for a photo. Gillespie was smiling from ear to ear, and I can only imagine how meaningful this personal gesture was to the graduates who stood on stage with their arm around the shoulder of this jazz great. It told me something about Dizzy Gillespie that his recordings can’t fully express: he loved life and he loved people, and he shared that love with others in very tangible ways. I wasn’t playing serpent when he came to NEC’s commencement in 1991, but if I had, I like to think I would have brought my serpent to the ceremony and asked Dizzy to play a chorus. I bet he would have done that. Serpentine bop.