Leon Merian, 84; noted jazz trumpeter was also French teacher
American music halls in the 1940s were filled with the exuberant sound of big-band jazz, and it was a thrilling era for Boston area trumpeter Leon Merian, but he also experienced the divisive undercurrent of the jazz scene.
As the first white member of Lucky Millinder's big band, Mr. Merian was often caught between race lines.
"He ended up sleeping in the bus a lot of the time," said his son, Leon James Merian of Hingham. "He wasn't allowed to stay in the black hotels because he was white, and he wasn't allowed in the white hotels because he was with a black band."
Mr. Merian, a professional jazz musician for most of his life and for years a dedicated French teacher in Milton public schools, died of complications from diabetes Aug. 15 at TideWell Hospice in Bradenton, Fla. He was 84.
Born in Braintree, Mr. Merian discovered music at age 10, when his mother took him to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra and asked him which instrument he would like to play.
The young boy heard the powerful sound coming from the trumpet, his son said, and found his calling.
"He said the sound just seemed to explode out of the instrument," his son said. "My father always had that explosive sound in his playing."
His training on the trumpet began at age 12, and he was playing clubs by the time he was 16. Though he won a physics scholarship after graduating from high school, Mr. Merian chose to take his growing musical talent on the road.
Stints in several local bands won him the notice of Millinder, a big-band leader of national acclaim. In Millinder's band Mr. Merian played alongside a roster of early jazz legends, including Charlie Shavers and Sonny Stitt. He also played with Gene Krupa.
Wayne Naus of Dorchester took trumpet lessons from Mr. Merian in the mid-1970s and played with him in clubs around Boston for more than 10 years.
"When I came to Boston, I started to hear about the major trumpet players in the area, and Leon was one of them," Naus said. "He had this bigger-than-life reputation as a player and as a person. He had an aura about him. His playing was incredible."
By the mid-1950s, Mr. Merian saw the demand for big bands slowly fade, and decided to venture outside the music world to support himself and his family.
Mr. Merian was married to Anne (Soroyian) of Cambridge between 1947 and 1964, according to his son, and to Carole (Zawaski) of Duxbury between 1968 and 1978. Both marriages ended in divorce. In 1994, Mr. Merian married Elizabeth (Biantiano). She died in 2003.
Mr. Merian studied French at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Columbia University, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1961 and a master's degree in 1963. While his focus remained on his studies, Mr. Merian could not bear to be away from the stage.
"It was a crazy life," Mr. Merian said in a 1983 Globe article. "I would play until 2 or 3 in the morning, hit the books, and be in class by 9 or 10. The routine was repeated every summer while I studied at the Sorbonne."
After serving as department chairman of foreign languages at New Rochelle High School in New York and at Endicott College in Beverly, Mr. Merian went to Milton public schools, where he was chairman of the foreign languages department until he retired in 1982 to concentrate on music.
Mr. Merian also wrote a book of musical instruction, "Trumpet Isometrics," and a 2000 autobiography, "The Man Behind the Horn." That year he crowned a recording career that included dozens of albums as a leader and accompanist with an album titled "The Real Thing."
Naus, who is now associate professor of harmony at Berklee College of Music, said Mr. Merian had natural instincts as a teacher.
"If you had a physical or technical problem on the trumpet, he was the one to go to," Naus said. "He was like the family doctor. You'd tell him your symptoms, and he'd diagnose your problem and give you exercises to fix it."
Even after retiring to Florida, Mr. Merian gave trumpet lessons and played whenever he could.
"At his shows, during the breaks, he would always talk to the audience about the good old days, and tell them to get up and dance," his son said. "He blew the life out of his horn, and it blew life right back into him."
In addition to his son, Mr. Merian leaves a sister, Florence Kashian of Menlo Park, Calif.; two granddaughters; and one grandson.
A funeral Mass will be said at 10:30 a.m. today at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Braintree.
Correction: Because of incorrect information provided by the family, an obituary Wednesday on Leon Merian gave an incorrect maiden name for his first wife. Her name is Anne (Najarian).
