LEE LOUGHNANE : CHICAGO’S TOP BRASS
Reprinted with permission from the International Trumpet Guild Journal, June 2025, vol. 49, no. 4. To learn more about the ITG and its mission to connect and support trumpet players worldwide, visit http://www.trumpetguild.org. Written by Del Lyren.
Lee Loughnane, a founding member of and trumpet player in the iconic band Chicago, stands out as one of the few trumpet players heard worldwide for decades. Born in Elmwood Park, Illinois, Loughnane developed a passion for music early on, playing the trumpet throughout high school and continuing his musical studies at DePaul University. It was during his time at DePaul that Lee met the musicians who would eventually form the core of Chicago, including Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, and Danny Seraphine.
As Chicago’s trumpet player, Loughnane was integral in shaping the band’s groundbreaking sound, blending rock, jazz, and classical genres. His trumpet lines became a defining element of many of the band’s greatest hits, such as 25 or 6 to 4, Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?, and Beginnings. Beyond performing, Loughnane has contributed as a songwriter, arranger, and producer throughout the band’s extensive catalog. Notably, he wrote and co-wrote several of the band’s songs, including Call on Me.
Throughout his career, Loughnane has maintained a commitment to musical excellence, continually evolving as a musician. His contributions have been central to Chicago’s success, with the band releasing over 38 albums and selling more than 100 million records. Loughnane has remained a constant, anchoring the brass section with his signature sound. Even after decades on the road, Loughnane’s dedication to touring remains steady. Most recently, while on tour with Earth, Wind & Fire in Minneapolis/St. Paul, he shared reflections on his life, career, and trumpet playing. The band had performed in Chicago the evening prior to this interview and made an overnight journey by bus, arriving in Minneapolis at 6am.
Lyren: I’m assuming you probably get pretty much the same questions all the time?
Loughnane: Pretty much, yeah, but they get less hard when you know the answer!
Lyren: I want this to be a little bit of a different interview, if that’s possible?
Loughnane: You know? Go ahead! I don’t know if it’s possible, but I think this is good right now—we’re just conversational.
Lyren: Yes, exactly. I would love to dig into topics that aren’t normally asked, although I’m sure just about everything has been asked at some point.
Loughnane: Man, we’ve been doing this for 58 years in February 2025. We started in February of 1967.
Lyren: Is there another band out there that has been touring consistently as long as Chicago? Maybe “The Rolling Stones?
Loughnane: The Rolling Stones, yes, but I think we’re the only band in history that has worked every year for 57 years. Even during Covid we didn’t take a year off. Tere was a fifteen-month period where we didn’t work during but we worked during all those calendar years. We would have gone back to work if anybody opened their building, but nobody was even venturing outside. It was devastating. we worked during all those calendar years. But we came back at the end of 2021 and started playing again, so we have still kept our record together, playing every year nonstop since 1967.
Lyren: That is truly amazing.
Loughnane: You know what? It is for me, too.
Lyren: How about if we focus on trumpet and how you got started? I’ve read that you started playing trumpet at about age eleven. Can you talk about how you got started, and did trumpet come easily to you?
Loughnane: My dad asked me if I wanted to play trumpet. He had one in the attic and asked if I wanted to be in the band. I think what he was trying to do was broaden my scope of worldly events or just give me another choice of what to do with my life—something like that. So, we went to school to see the band director at Saint Celestine Grade School. He looked at my teeth and said I’m probably not going to damage my teeth. So I started right there in grade school. Then my dad got me set up with private lessons with a guy named John Nuzzo in Elmwood Park, where I lived. I started learning the Schlossberg method. That was the thing that I remember the most from John’s lessons—playing Schlossberg, long tones, and every thing straight and clean all the way through. Holding a note as long as you can and then taking a breath and doing it again. So yeah, that was my start.
Lyren: Do you remember how they started you? How did they approach your first lessons?
Loughnane: I don’t really recall. I think we just started playing tunes. We started playing with the band, and I guess it came pretty easily. Music was always easier for me to remember than historical dates and things like that. I was always the kid in the class to try not to raise my hand until they’re actually just about to point to somebody. Then I’d raise my hand like, “Oh yes, I am interested!” I was never that smart and didn’t enjoy school all that much, but trumpet playing and music were easy for me to remember.
Lyren: Yes, many musicians are like that.
Loughnane: It’s amazing how many musicians still don’t actually read music, but they have incredible ears. They can tell you what’s going on, but they don’t know how to put it on paper.
Lyren: Could you talk about your trumpet progress as you got a little older?
Loughnane: When I went to high school, my dad’s childhood band director, Tom Fabish, was the band director at Saint Mel High School. I had to take three buses to get to it. The school that was closer was Saint Patrick’s High School, but they didn’t have a band. They had sports, but no band. So, I took the extra buses and went to Saint Mel and studied trumpet with Tom Fabish. He was great. The same director I had at Saint Celestine also worked at Saint Mel, so it was like one little family there. Then I went to the Catholic Youth Organization. The CYO band played in marching situations, and they could never get me to really raise my legs unless I went past the reviewing stand. I said, “Listen, do you want the notes, or do you want the legs up? If you want the parts right, let me play.”
Lyren: Did you play any piano in your early years?
Loughnane: No. My dad bought a piano, but I didn’t really put in the time on it. I just played the trumpet.
Lyren: Do you think if you had played piano at age five or six it would have changed anything about your musicianship?
Loughnane: I would probably be writing more. I think it would have helped to have the knowledge of what those notes are and how the music is put together—knowing the language of music, like how a ii-V-I really fits together. And once you go beyond the regular ii-V-I to more complex chords, you realize it is a little more intricate than you had imagined. Piano helps you understand the theory of why music sounds good.
Lyren: Lightbulb moments.
Loughnane: Yeah, the lightbulb! Now I’m studying piano with a guy named Stan Verna. I signed up for his course, and it’s really good. He’s teaching me the intricacies and the language. Yes, I could’ve started learning at age eleven, but better late than never!
Lyren: Are you doing that just because you’re interested, or do you have other motivation?
Loughnane: Yeah, I have a studio, so I’m not going to have to call a piano player anytime I need something done. Realistically, anything you can hear, you can figure out. You just find it one note at a time, and you can make it sound like you had both hands going. But I want to learn the correct way, and that’s what I’m doing taking lessons.
Lyren: I’d like to quickly go back to your younger, formative years, from grades nine through twelve. Do you remember what you worked on at that age?
Loughnane: I think by the time I went to high school, I was doing Schlossberg in the morning, and I was doing the Clarke studies. It wasn’t until I started studying with a Claude Gordon student that I started working with specific lessons. He would write out the lesson, and I would do it with a metronome. I had to play it in time every time, and if was too fast for me, I would take it back three clicks. Then I would work it back up one click at a time until I had it down.
Lyren: I assume you’re talking about Paul Witte?
Loughnane: Yes, exactly. I haven’t talked to him in quite a while now. I’ll call him right after this.
Lyren: Can you dig in more specifically about how he taught the Gordon method to you and what you practiced?
Loughnane: I think he taught the Gordon method the way Claude taught it to him. I’m not as good a teacher as Paul, and I still don’t have that kind of time to have students come over to my house because I’m always gone. I’m not even at my house most of the time! So it’s impossible for me to give lessons, but that was my intent when I was taking with Paul. I was going to be giving lessons to people because it’s important that this stuff be learned and move forward and be done correctly.
There’s a guy named Jeff Purtle who still does that, and he does a lot of stuff online carrying the Claude word along. I have also realized that you need to get to the point where you’re using the tongue and the jaw, and the only thing the lips do is buzz. When you don’t have to use a lot of air in the high register. All you have to do is get the note out there and use less air in the upper register than you do in the lower register. These are the concepts that people don’t quite understand. There’s a belief that as you go higher you have to push harder, but you don’t. I’m trying to unlearn all the stuff I learned when I was playing before in-ear monitors were invented. I’m trying to make overblowing a thing of the past. I still have a full tone and use the air properly, but I don’t overblow and blast—unlearning my childhood. It takes quite a while for the memory to learn something new.
Lyren: If you’re talking about using a little bit less air in the upper register, there must be something you do that counteracts that. I assume that’s tongue placement?
Loughnane: Yes, tongue placement. The tongue arches, and the air goes up over the top and the lips buzz. You just put the lips in place, and as you go down the jaw drops, and you get the lower notes. You keep the lip in the same place with tight corners.
Lyren: What do you do for a warmup?
Loughnane: I start out in the morning just getting that first note. Once that first note happens [g ] then I go a half step lower to the F-sharp, and then a half step higher to A-flat, and then F-sharp and then back to the G. I do that all the way up to the G above the staff—just very easily, with each note sounding good. Then I go beat myself up on the gig—hopefully not too much! The more times you do it right, the harder it is to screw it up.
Lyren: I’m curious about the whole tongue-placement thing because I heard you say something about leaving the front of your tongue on the bottom teeth or near the bottom teeth?
Loughnane: The tip of the tongue never leaves the top of the bottom teeth. It’s the fat of the tongue that does the actual attack. Claude called it the “K-tongue modified.” The fat of the tongue off the roof of the mouth is the initial attack. Strangely enough, in the Schlossberg book, it says to use the tip of the tongue, which is what I did when I first started until I took lessons from Paul. When I started out, I tongued my first notes with the tip of the tongue on the top, and then the tongue has to really flop around. With the “K-tongue modified” the tongue is already in place. With single tongue, double tongue, and triple tongue, it’s much easier to do that incrementally faster as you learn. You use the metronome to get faster.
Lyren: Is that something somebody could teach themselves? Or do you think one would need a teacher?
Loughnane: A teacher would probably be best—someone who knows the concept. It’s not the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth; it’s the fat of the tongue. The tip of the tongue never leaves the bottom teeth. You just arch it as you go higher. You don’t have to use as much air because the air is going over the top and then out, and the only thing the lips have to do is buzz.
Lyren: Where does the front of your tongue go when you’re multiple tonguing?
Loughnane: It never moves. “Kee” as you go higher, and “Kah” as you go lower.
Lyren: I’m going to practice after this! I’ve got to try this.
Loughnane: So how do you tongue notes?
Lyren: With the tip of the tongue right at the top of the top teeth.
Loughnane: With K-tongue modified, you do the same thing with the double tongue and triple tongue. So the K is coming from the throat and the attack comes from the fat of the tongue on the roof of the mouth. Then the “Kah” is the secondary attack. I don’t do much triple tonguing because of the band. The only time I double tongue is in 25 or 6 to 4. Other than The Ballet, that’s the most classically oriented tune we do.
Lyren: Do you ever do solo gigs outside of the band?
Loughnane: Not really. Once I get home, I’m pretty busy. I go into the studio and am usually working on some sort of Chicago show that we’ve done. There is a lot of Chicago work, amazingly enough. You would think by this time we would start slowing down, but if anything, we’re going more accelerated.
Lyren: Wow. Still writing and still recording?
Loughnane: Yes. It’s harder to get things put on the air, how ever. As radio has developed or branched out to so many different types of stations, you can’t get one song to play across the board. You’re lucky if a YouTube thing catches on and you get a bunch of people streaming your stuff.
Lyren: And then you make your five cents o! Spotify.
Loughnane: If you make five cents, it would be nice! We’re very fortunate because the legacy of our band is with an audience that is used to actually buying music. So many people are expecting to be able to get for free whatever you put out. they don’t realize how much it costs to just put it together, record it, get all those guys into the studio, mix it down, and master it. All those things cost money, and we don’t do it for free. So hopefully you can make it back and at least break even. Music is still out there, and people are out there listening to it, so the best way you can get it to them is any way you can figure out how to do that.
Lyren: Do you guys feel touring is the best way for you to bring in income?
Loughnane: Yeah, it’s always the way we have brought in the in come except for the major writers in the band: Robert and Jimmy— and Terry when he was with us.I’m still getting paid for songs I wrote in the 1970s. Things could be a lot worse for us. We were fortunate to come in at a time when music was being paid every time it got played; every time it got played you received seven cents. Now you get about $.0000000001 for a play. That’s not going to add up too quickly for a play.
Lyren: So how about your influences musically and trumpet-wise? I have heard you talk about that, but who are some of your biggest influences?
Loughnane: First, Louis Armstrong. then, I remember listening to Maynard and trying to play along with him. Also, my dad’s big band records—all those guys. Just trying to play along with all of those records. There was no note that was ever too high for Maynard.
Lyren: Did you ever get to meet him?
Loughnane: He played a solo on one of our records from Criterion Studios in Florida. He gave me one of his Jet-Tone mouthpieces, which is pretty much a flat piece of metal with a hole in it. At that time, I couldn’t get the concept of actually being able to get a sound out of it. That’s how much of my lip I was immersing inside of the cup. I couldn’t play on his mouthpiece. I think I probably still have that mouthpiece somewhere, and I would imagine I could probably figure out how to play on it now. He would play some amazing stuff on that Jet-Tone.
Lyren: I don’t know how he did it either. I’ve seen his mouthpiece.
Loughnane: Did you try to play on it?
Lyren: No, I don’t think I could have gotten a sound out. How about non-musically? Any big influences that way?
Loughnane: Non-musically? Playing on stage, it took a while for me to learn how to come out of my shell. I was always painfully shy, and this business actually helped me grow up and be more personal to people. I didn’t know how to do that for a long time. I’m not sure why that is or where it comes from. Live and learn, I guess, right?
Lyren: It just comes from the nature of the business because you have to do it when you’re on stage.
Loughnane: You can only hide so much. there were at least five other guys I could hide behind when we first started, so I just sort of stood there. they could hear me but not notice me—like back at school.
Lyren: Have you ever done any studio sessions outside of the band sessions?
Loughnane: I’ve done a few—just here and there—but I’m not a session guy because we’re always on our way out of town and back to another tour. I can’t set up a schedule of work. Wayne Bergeron and all those guys have to immerse them selves. They don’t know what they are going to get when they walk into a session—or what kind of technique or style of music they’re going to have to play. They have to be ready for all of the above. All I’ve done is be a pop trumpet player, really, so I guess you could say in some ways that has held me back. But it’s also put me out there in front of millions of people. So now I’m trying to get as good as I can get, knowing that these guys can play rings around me. They play so many different styles and can do so many different things with their tongue and all these different techniques I have never mastered. We [Chicago] keep playing our legacy of tunes over and over. I’m still good to go with what we do.
Lyren: I’m curious about your practice routine. Does it change when you’re at home versus when you’re on the road? I’m curious if there are different routines there.
Loughnane: Not really. I check out a bunch of YouTube stuff: Wayne Bergeron, Arturo Sandoval, just various guys giving little ideas and techniques. I’ll try those for a while. I like the thing that Wayne espouses with getting that first note out. Let me get my horn, and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. [Plays first note of his day.] That was the first note this morning, after a six-hour overnight bus ride. On the show, there are 75 minutes for us and then our encore with Earth, Wind & Fire, so the lips swell up a little bit. In the warmup, I get the swelling down and just get the notes responding. When I start the air, the buzz starts. That’s where I attempt to go, and I’m sure I will arrive by the time I go back to sleep. Then I get up for the show and get ready to go as much as I can.
Lyren: That’s all you can do.
Loughnane: That’s right.
Lyren: Have you ever played a show when your chops just weren’t working, and what did you do if that happened?
Loughnane: Keep going. Take some stuff down an octave. Do whatever you need to do to get through the show and probably force things too much. But once you’re on, you have to keep going until it’s over, so you do the best you can. It’s amazing how many people in the audience actually don’t know if you miss a note. I’m hypersensitive as you probably are as well. Once you make a mistake,you think everybody heard that. It’s amazing how many people don’t actually realize that you have missed the note. They think youmight have done that on purpose and that’s the way it’s supposed to sound. You get used to being as good as you possibly can, knowing you’re not going to be perfect. But I’m going to try my damnedest to get there.
Lyren: I think everybody’s hypersensitive to their own playing.
Loughnane: Especially if you know there’s another trumpet player in the audience.
Lyren: We haven’t really talked about breath ing yet, but I’ve read what you’ve said in certain cases about that. Do you mind just running through that?
Loughnane: I have not been doing the breathing exercises the way that I once did. After a while, that starts showing up. I have to redouble my efforts and get back into really building that up again. As you might expect, it’s easier to lose it than to build it up. That’s the way nature works.
Lyren: So what sort of exercises do you do?
Loughnane: Walk in the room or outside, take five steps and breathe in for five, hold it for five, out for five. And then six, seven, eight, nine, ten counts—all the way up to walking ten. I haven’t done walking ten in quite a while. Just try to get the air going so every time you take a breath it’s not strained breath, it’s just a full breath.
Lyren: Did you learn this from somewhere or come up with it
Loughnane: It’s the Claude method: Brass Playing Is No Harder than Deep Breathing.
Lyren: I want to go back to slow practice because I do a fair amount of teaching, and, especially with my younger students, I have a hard time getting them to believe that slow practice is important. They all want to play fast right away, and then they make mistakes two-thirds of the time and ingrain bad habits.
Loughnane: Have them play whatever it is they’re playing with the metronome. If they make a mistake and can’t play it evenly, they have to take it back three clicks. Start there. Then if they make mistake there, take it back three more clicks. Until you can play it evenly without a mistake all the way through, and then take it up one click. Much as they want to get there with that green light on all the time, it is not going to work. I’m as guilty as anybody else. I want to get there faster. It’s human nature. It just doesn’t work that way. Human nature is against you.
Lyren: It is. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Rafael Méndez and…
Loughnane: Oh my God! The man who never had to take a breath! He would breathe through his nose. I never figured out how to do that.
Lyren: Yes, he was notorious for circular breathing and slow practice. He would practice slowly all day.
Loughnane: He was an amazing trumpet player. Flight of the Bumblebee. Any song that he could play, he could play in what looked like one breath. But he was constantly breathing and comfortably playing all the notes. He looked like a machine. Really, I mean, how do you do that? There’s never been anyone else quite like him.
Lyren: Can we talk about touring life? I understand how grueling touring can be.
Loughnane: It is something that you have to get used to. You have to figure out how to rest so that you’re actually rested to the point where when you pick up the horn you prepare yourself for the next show—which is that night. I’m going to get on the bus right after the show tonight and drive to Cleveland. The drivers can only drive for eight to ten hours total, and then they have to stop. It’s mandated; they have to stop, go into a hotel, sleep for as long as they can, and then come back on the bus and drive the rest of the way to Cleveland. In the meantime, I use it as a normal day for me—get up after sleeping on the bus, get a cup of coffee, start practicing (and maybe watch TV at the same time), and spend my day preparing for my practice day. I treat every day pretty much the same, even when I’m home. things don’t change; it’s just a different day.
Lyren: I suppose that consistent routine, whether at home or on the road, makes it easier to adjust between the two.
Loughnane: It does.
Lyren: How about younger players today? Would you have any advice for them if they wanted to make a career in music, whether it’s commercially or as a soloist?
Loughnane: First, you have to have the passion for it. This is a tough business—as any business is—but the music business is not easy. You have to want to be here, be able to work at it, and accept rejection—because it’s going to be there. But if you are really passionate about playing, keep playing! Don’t let anybody talk you out of it; you will get good enough where people will hire you. You could do that with any profession; it’s not just music. Whatever is your passion, that’s what you should pursue. Whether it’s electronics, computers, painting or anything artistic—anything you’re doing so much because you enjoy it, do that.
Lyren: Would you say the same thing for a student who wants to be a trumpet performance major?
Loughnane: Yeah. My parents tried to talk me out of it, too. My father, especially. He wanted me to get a job, work my way up, remember everybody’s name, and do all the “normal stuff” that people do, but practicing was my normal. Playing with other bands. By the time he tried to talk me out of it, it was too late. Here I am today. It’s amazing. I’m the luckiest man in the world to be in this position, and there’s no other job like what I have. A lot of the people who play rings around me would love to be in this position. I’m the one who’s here, though, so I try to make the best of what I have.
Lyren: How did your parents feel about it when Chicago really started to take o! and become well known?
Loughnane: They got used to it really quick! I remember my mom saying, “You’ll probably get to a point where you don’t make mistakes anymore.” Thanks for noticing, Mom!
Lyren: That’s great! Only a mom can get away with saying something like that. I’m curious who you listen to these days?
Loughnane: I get up and play, and then we go play our songs. After a while I don’t really want to hear music. I want to go to sleep, instead. I love the stuff I grew up with, and I love hearing it. You can’t hear it enough. That’s the stuff that cemented my love for music.
Lyren: It was nice to meet you. I really do appreciate you taking the time to do this because I know how busy you guys are. I know it’s got to get old doing this over and over and over, so it’s very much appreciated!
Loughnane: I’m the luckiest man in the world. Most of the time I’m thinking, “Why do they want to talk to me? What the hell can I say that they haven’t heard from someone else better than me?”
Lyren: “That’s an easy one for me to answer because I’ve been listening to Chicago since I was about twelve. I’ve been hearing you on CDs and on the radio for most of my life. It’s really cool to be able to sit here and have a conversation. “Thank you very much, and I’ll see you tonight.
Loughnane: See you tonight. Thank you, Del.
About the author:
Dr. Del Lyren is currently an affiliate faculty member in the School of Music at University of Minnesota. He has presented lectures and recitals throughout the world and proudly co-hosted the 2011 ITG Conference that was held in Minneapolis. Lyren’s students have achieved success in nearly every arena of the music world. Many have completed doctoral degrees and teach at the university level, serve in the top military bands in Washington, D.C, or perform with major popular artists such as Adele, The Temptations, and Boyz to Men. Others have performed numerous times for the president of the United States and played Taps at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Lyren has shared the stage or collaborated with dozens of the world’s top musicians, including Wynton Marsalis, Doc Severinsen, Steve Smith, Jen Coffin, Rashawn Ross, Steve Turre, Wayne Bergeron, Wycliffe Gordon, Joe Burgstaller, Jon Faddis, the Minnesota Orchestra, Sean Jones, Randy Brecker, Bobby Shew, Canadian Brass, Boston Brass, Dallas Brass, and many more.