"He's a wonderful example of not giving up after getting sick," said his friend, Annie Whitney. "After all that stuff happening, he never gave up."

Howard Hedges

But Homer lost him anyway. On a sunny day Monday, Oct. 15, the world-class horn musician who played with everyone from Ray Charles to Stan Kenton, died about 6:30 p.m. from injuries in a fall after his wheelchair tipped over at the corner of Lake Street and Pioneer Avenue. He was 52.

Services are at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21, at Glacier View Baptist Church on East End Road. A potluck follows at 3:30 p.m. Friends are asked to bring white handkerchiefs or napkins "to wave him off to Heaven," said his wife, Kathy Hedges, as "When the Saints Go Marching In" is sung and played.

Hedges had gone up to Subway on Monday to get a sandwich, said his wife.

"He was out doing something he loved to do -- being independent," Kathy Hedges said.

Homer Volunteer Fire Department emergency medical technicians took Hedges to South Peninsula Hospital about noon. He regained consciousness briefly, his wife said.

"He was able to tell me he loved me and I was able to say that to him," Kathy Hedges said. "He was spared all that suffering ... It was a shock, but it was the right way to go."

Born June 7, 1955, at Norfolk Naval Base, Va., Hedges grew up in Pompano Beach, Fla. Kathy Hedges said Howard was good at two things: football and music. When a knee injury ended his football career, he turned to music.

From 1978 to 1990, he toured all over the world. Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton, The Temptations, the Four Tops, Aretha Franklin: he played with them all, including over a year with the Stan Kenton Orchestra.

"He was a wonderful trombone player," said Clay Jenkins of Rochester, N.Y., who toured with Hedges in the Kenton Orchestra. "He was a wonderful colleague on the road. ... He was like a big bear, as kind as he could be. Everyone who knew him loved him."

"He was the best damn trombone player I ever heard," said Mark Robinson, a fellow teacher and his conductor in the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra. "He was just a force of nature."

Hedges met his wife while she was a music student in Orange County, Calif., when the Stan Kenton Orchestra did a music clinic. She went up to San Francisco to hear a Kenton concert, and rode back on the bus with Howard, Kathy Hedges said. They moved to Homer in 1990 to get away from the fast-paced touring life. A stroke in 1991 ended Hedges' touring career, but didn't stop his playing.

When he lost his right foot to diabetes, Howard asked for a black artificial foot -- his rhythm foot, Kathy Hedges said. Black musicians would tell him "You play jazz great for a white boy," she said.

Once, when he was playing with Ray Charles, another horn player kept trying to tell Hedges what to do.

"Ray yelled out, 'I don't know who that a--hole is, tellin' my trombone man what to do. You listen to him," Kathy Hedges said.

While his resume is impressive, Hedges also should be known as a teacher, Robinson said.

"He was unbelievable with kids. He had this sense of humor that was raucous. He was fabulous with kids," Robinson said.

Robinson said Howard was his lesson plan for Tuesday. One of Howard's last professional gigs was at a Homer wedding, Robinson said.

"He had a philosophy, you do every gig like you're playing for the President of the United States or the Queen of England," Robinson said. "You're doing it for yourself. You walk away from a performance saying, 'I did my best today.'"

After he recovered from his stroke, Hedges played in many local bands, most lately with Elders on Fire, a rock 'n' roll band.

"He was just fun," said Dave Webster, who played sax with Hedges in several bands. "What I remember of Howard, it's not how many notes you play, as long as you play the right ones. He didn't play a lot of notes, but what he played was right."

All of his friends said Hedges had a wonderful sense of humor, and was always pulling pranks, like emptying his spit valve on Webster's shiny boots while Webster played a sax solo.

"If you look up 'irreverent' in the dictionary, there will be a picture of Howard," Webster said.

Even with his incredible career, Hedges was "an anti-prima donna," Robinson said.

"He just wanted to pass on his love of music and life," he said.

That spirit came out of what her husband saw as paying forward the gift of music he received from so many of Howard's teachers, Kathy Hedges said.

"He'd offer to pay them, but they said, just pass it on," she said. "That was his attitude: he just wanted to pass it on."

Despite his long illness, Hedges never gave up. Howard wanted to live and see his son, Michael, 15, grow up, Kathy Hedges said. Robinson said when you visited Hedges to cheer him up, he wound up cheering you up

"He was a lesson in patience and stick-to-it-iveness," Webster said. "No matter how tough stuff got -- he never let it show."

Hedges became a musician because he didn't give up, not even when he was told in junior high school that he should stop playing the trombone.

"That's really Howie," Whitney said "He was the little engine that could -- the big engine that could."

"It's just going to be a big hole in this community -- not just in the music community, but the whole town," Webster said.

Hedges is survived by his wife, Kathy Hedges, his son, Michael Hedges, his father and step-mother, Gene and Alice Hedges, three brothers and their wives, and one nephew.

"He loved the town of Homer, absolutely loved it," Kathy Hedges said. "He would do anything to give back to Homer, because Homer gave so much to everybody."

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.