Alfred S. Cassinelli aka Al Cass (born Alfred Stephen Cascianelli on September 7, 1923; died August 23, 1989) was an inventor,
performer
The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perfor ...
,
trumpeter
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B ...
,
manufacturer
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...
Cass was the youngest of nine children (Anna, Isadore, Mary, Louis, Rita, Hellen, Alba, and Concetta) of Italian immigrants who came to America and settled in Milford, Massachusetts at the turn of the 20th century. Later, the name was changed to "Cassinelli" by an older sibling, a fad of the day to enable other immigrants to spell and pronounce the name more easily. Both parents did not agree to the name change, and thus kept their original last name.
Cass asked his mother for a horn at age 12 after hearing
Harry James
Harry Haag James (March 15, 1916 – July 5, 1983) was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a short period in 1947 but shortly after he reorganized ...
on the radio.
He was the president of his class at Milford High School in 1941. He had his own orchestra by age 14, performing at proms, weddings, and area clubs, notably the Crystal Room, which was frequented by many touring legends of the day, whom he met and was inspired by.
He entered into
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
as a machine gunner after the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...
, along with his older brothers Isadore and Louis. An older sister, Rita, went to Detroit to work for the war effort. Cass took his trumpet with him and was seen playing. He was immediately transferred into Special Services touring the European theater, performing for troops who were awaiting the arrival of Hollywood's Andrews Sisters,
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in Bob Hope filmography, more than 70 short and ...
, and Mickey Rooney among others. He left service as Private 1st class.
Career
After the war, the re-formed "Al Cass Orchestra" toured the East Coast befriending fellow band leaders such as Cab Calloway,
Count Basie
William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades. Though K ...
, some of whom Cass had first met at the Crystal Room before World War II. Following an important gig to which members of his orchestra failed to show up, he ended his tour as a band leader and returned home to care for his ailing father Stephano Cascianell (d.1952), who had been a stone cutter at one of Milford's famous
Pink granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergr ...
quarries.
Cass built a workshop in the two-car garage next to his family home and began work on his longtime idea for a mouthpiece that would enable brass musicians to play more than just their declared instrument of choice using the same
embouchure
Embouchure () or lipping is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument. This includes shaping the lips to the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument or the mouthpiece of a brass instrument. The word is o ...
. After several years of research and development, he invented "doubling" mouthpieces for brass musicians, which he patented with Patent #2,917,964.
He was a mouthpiece consultant, manufacturer of brass mouthpieces for trumpeter,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
musician, and creator of
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
John Birks; Dizzy Gillespie; and many other legends from the Big Band era. His clientele includes notables from the jazz generation such as Louis Armstrong,
Roy Eldridge
David Roy Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), nicknamed "Little Jazz", was an American jazz trumpeter. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos exhibiting a departure from ...
Booker Little
Booker Little Jr. (April 2, 1938 – October 5, 1961) – accessed June 2010 was an American
,
Blue Mitchell
Richard Allen "Blue" Mitchell (March 13, 1930 – May 21, 1979) was an American trumpeter and composer who worked in jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock and funk. He recorded albums as leader and sideman for Riverside, Mainstream Records, and ...
,
Buck Clayton
Wilbur Dorsey "Buck" Clayton (November 12, 1911 – December 8, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter who was a member of Count Basie's orchestra. His principal influence was Louis Armstrong, first hearing the record "Confessin' That I Love You" ...
, and
Doc Cheatham
Adolphus Anthony Cheatham, better known as Doc Cheatham (June 13, 1905 – June 2, 1997), was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He is also the Grandfather of musician Theo Croker.
Early life
Doc Cheatham was born in Nashv ...
.
He was the manufacturer and creator of the "FAST" valve/slide/key oil combination for brass instruments, which has been considered the industry standard since inception. It was developed after 18 months of R&D at the request and final approval of Dizzy Gillespie.
Later personal life
In 1980, Cass' mother Josephine died at age 99. Cass was told by his own physicians that he had 5% of his liver and just months to live. He purchased a home away from his business and older surviving siblings, and taught his son Stephen (b. 1968) the business. By 1981, he stopped making mouthpieces and left Stephen in control of oil production. He stopped going to his factory on a regular basis to spend more time with his youngest son Joseph (b. 1977). A third son, Alfred the 2nd, was born in 1982. Fearing his death was near, he spent most of his time designing his two youngest sons a backyard in the tradition of
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
.
For several years, up until his death, he was working on a portable water-saving irrigation system for crop production in drought-ridden areas of the world.