Epistemic status: informed speculation
I.
I played the trombone for 11 years. If you ask trombone players who the best trombone player in the world is, everyone says Joe Alessi. He’s the only professional trombone player most non-professional trombone players can name (aside from perhaps Trombone Shorty and Christopher Bill). [1]
Why the consensus? Is he really that much better than all the other pros?
II.
I asked a friend and fellow trombone player about this once, and he said Joe’s title as “best in the world” comes from his talent at self-promotion. He’s not the only world-class trombone player, but he is the only one with both that level of talent and the ability to market himself effectively. [2]
Think of it this way. Imagine you’re trying to decide who the best trombone player in the world is, and you’re faced with 10 people who are all incredible.
It would be hard to figure out who was the best out of that group, especially because there are so many dimensions along which someone can sound good on the trombone (I realize the above graph flattens all of those dimensions into “trombone ability”, but bear with me).
III.
In overwhelming situations like this, our brain looks for a shortcut. The shortcut Joe offers us is his self-promotion.
Take his website (he has 2, actually). It looks much better than that of some of his contemporaries. For comparison, check out the websites of Mark Nightingale, Christian Lindberg, or Bob McChesney.
He’s also a likable guy. He performed at the university I went to and took a picture with my friends after the show.
Another friend told me he wanted to go to Julliard (where Joe is a faculty member), so in high school he emailed Joe and asked for a lesson. My friend didn’t get in, but Joe gave him a lesson anyway.
Giving a lesson to a nobody high-schooler isn’t typical self-promotion, but it’s the kind of thing that earns goodwill and makes people want to call you “the best in the world”.
IV.
The effect of all this is changing our above one-dimensional graph into a two-dimensional graph.
When you’re confronted with this set of trombone players, the choice for the number one spot is easy.
A purist might argue “Well who cares if he’s a likable self-promoter? His trombone ability should be the only thing that matters when judging who’s the best trombone player.” It should be the only thing that matters, but it isn’t. We’re lazy and use shortcuts to make decisions, even when those shortcuts have no bearing on “the thing” itself.
Another criticism is “He’s not that good at self-promotion. He wouldn’t last a day in a real marketing job.” Yes, but that’s not the game he needs to win. All he needs to do is be a bit better at marketing than the other top-tier trombone players to stand out.
“Sure, but that’s a low bar to get over. Most musicians know nothing about marketing!” Exactly. He knows the most in a field completely unrelated to his main one.
And when that field is selected intelligently, it makes all the difference.
[1] If you search “great trombone players“, you won’t find him 1st on every list, but he will show up on most/all lists. My “data” about public opinion of Joe is purely anecdotal, and my comment about non-professional trombone players means “high schoolers and college students who aren’t music majors”.
[2] Or at the very least, he’s the best marketer out of all the world-class trombone players.
Steve's Blog 