Dr. Eli Newberger, a traditional jazz tubist and notable medical professional, passed away on October 24th, he was 83 years old. Pressed into playing tuba in sixth grade, by grade eight he was in a Dixieland band. After completing a degree at Julliard he entered Yale for music theory and soon was playing with the Tin Rainbow Jazz Band. He met his wife Carolyn, a Sarah Lawrence student, on a blind date. As newlyweds, they became resident directors of Yale’s International House for foreign students from 1963-66. The International Feetwarmers played in the basement, they became the nucleus of the Black Eagles Jazz Band, of which Eli would be a co-founder, first on piano, and then after they became the New Black Eagles in 1971, his tuba. He stayed with the band until 2001 as they created a distinct sound across 40 albums and countless festival appearances.
He switched his major to medicine, as he told one interviewer, because “I knew that if I went into medicine, I somehow would always be able to play music.” After Yale the Newbergers spent two years in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) for the Peace Corps, with a daughter who was just five weeks old when they departed. It was on that trip he developed his specific interest in pediatric medicine, focusing on that at Harvard after his return.
For 28 years, Eli Newberger directed the Family Development clinic at Children’s Hospital i
