Josephine M. Salzillo, at 83; trumpeter spanned genres

Josephine Salzillo played trumpet and sang for several big bands in the 1940s.

As a schoolgirl in South Boston, Josephine M. (Hunt) Salzillo didn't mind when neighborhood children would greet her with, "Hey, Gabriel!" She would respond with a smile and a nod, knowing it was their way of praising her trumpet playing by comparing her to the archangel who blew a horn to herald Judgment Day.

As a teenager, she was sought after as a solo trumpeter by such groups as the Vaughn Monroe Orchestra and the Ruby Newman Society Orchestra. And as Joan Hunt, she gained a following in the 1940s with her versatile style that encompassed both jazz and classical while playing with several other bands along the Eastern Seaboard.

Mrs. Salzillo died Feb. 6 of Alzheimer's disease at Riverview Healthcare Community in Coventry, R.I. She was 83 and had lived in Johnston, R.I.

Mrs. Salzillo had a promising career but chose domesticity.

"Looking back, it always amazed me that she didn't pursue it," said her son Albert of Greenville, R.I. "Marriage and motherhood came first."

She had talent to spare. Mrs. Salzillo's playing was often compared to that of trumpeter and bandleader Harry James, particularly her rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumble Bee," which James made famous.

"So. Boston Girl Wins British Stage Tour," read a headline from the Boston American in 1946, for an article saying she had been offered a contract to appear on the British stage as well as to tour Europe as "an international attraction." The offer came after she had been runner-up in the Miss Massachusetts pageant that year.

The article spoke of her "almost smoky voice, a way of handling the trumpet and those big blue eyes and golden hair." When she wasn't playing the trumpet, she was a vocalist with the band.

But Mrs. Salzillo turned down the offer, her family said, possibly because she was reluctant to leave her family and was "very modest. She didn't like to be the center of attention," said her granddaughter Keri Salzillo of South Boston.

Mrs. Salzillo grew up in South Boston, the daughter of Samuel J. and Claire (McManus) Hunt.

Her sister, Claire Maytum of Arlington, said she started playing the trumpet at 9 when they were both in the marching bugle corps at the Oliver Hazard Perry School.

Her daughter, Patricia, of Narragansett, R.I., recalled her mother telling her how once in a parade in South Boston she was walking along playing and fell into an open manhole. "She was saved because her arms were up in the air."

While at South Boston High School, she continued to take lessons and play with the Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra. She began taking short trips on the road with several bands while still in school.

Before she graduated in 1942, Mrs. Salzillo worked with a local swing group led by George Lang and began playing three to four nights a week with the Roly Rogers Orchestra, which played around New England in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1942 and 1943, she played part time with the Vaughn Monroe Orchestra but turned down an invitation to play with the band regularly to study music under a scholarship at Boston University College of Music. She played in the BU Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler, then also conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Mrs. Salzillo was the only female member of the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra when it performed at the Boston Public Library in 1943. Boston newspapers wrote how she had been locked in the darkened library for three hours - she had gone off from the men to change into street clothes after the show and was left behind.

She met her future husband in 1945. Albert A. Salzillo said he was still in the Navy when he saw her perform at the Cabana Club in Warwick, R.I.

"I always loved music and heard about this fantastic woman trumpet player who was performing there," he said. "It was love at first sight."

He was discharged from the Navy a few weeks later, and their courtship began. "He would go to Boston every four days to see mom's family and she would go visit his in Johnston," their daughter Patricia said. He also drove her around New England to gigs at nightclubs or weddings.

He recalled that whenever he walked into a club where she was performing, "She'd start playing 'The Man I Love.' " They married in 1949. Their love affair lasted nearly 59 years.

They settled in Johnston. Albert co-owned a gas station and later worked as a truck driver. Mrs. Salzillo worked for the Johnston School Department for 35 years as bus monitor and in other support roles until retiring in 1999. "They were wonderful, hard-working parents," their daughter said.

Though she occasionally played trumpet around the house, her family said Mrs. Salzillo never performed in public again.

"She didn't seem to miss performing," her son said. Still, he recalled her "doing housework and playing into the mouthpiece" of her trumpet. "She told me she did that to 'keep my lip in shape,' " he said.

Kara Buckley of South Boston, another granddaughter, recalled how she and her sister Keri found the trumpet "in a case under the bed. She used to let us march around the house playing it."

Mrs. Salzillo never gave up her love for music. Despite her illness, her daughter recalled, her face would brighten and her eyes sparkle when the two sang or listened to music.

Services have been held.