Trumpeter Rasheed Richard Howard celebrated seven years of performing every weekend in Washington Square Park last Saturday, alongside his quartet, the Jazz Collective. Throughout that time Howard has wowed audiences of locals and tourists with his two-handed technique, in which he improvises on a flugelhorn and trumpet simultaneously. Asked if he knew George Braith — the legendary jazzman who, along with a few others, mastered the dual-horn style on saxophone in the ’60s and even built his own double-sax — Howard lit up and said that Braith was one of his mentors back in the day, and that he also lives five blocks away from Braith on Staten Island.
