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 in Boston. He developed protocols for recognizing abuse when that was a new field and in later decades was called as a witness in several high profile trials. Music and medicine were always entwined in his life, and even after retiring from medicine he found time to advance both. He credited music with making him a better doctor, and the empathy of medicine with making him a better musician.
He found ways to help children with music. Eli and Carolyn Newberger helped create Kids 4 Harmony, a program of music instruction for children in need. Returning to the classical field after several decades, he had been a member of the New Haven Symphony from 1958-66, he helped create the Cupcake Philharmonic to perform music for children featuring Tubby the Tuba. After leaving the New Black Eagles he continued playing with Eli and the Hot Six, joined by Carolyn on washboard. He also played with Jimmy Mazzy and Ted Casher as The Jazz Tuber Trio.
In 1999 he published a book on raising well adjusted sons, titled The Men They Will Become: The Nature and Nurture of Male Character. It is still read. He also published an essay, “The Medicine of the Tuba,” about how his two lives were inseparable. In it, he wrote:
“[T]he most important gratification that derives from my life as both a physician and musician comes from the privileged access to profound aspects of the human experience that each profession provides. What makes me a more complete person and a better physician for being a tuba player is that the music keeps me in touch with the emotional underpinnings of life. It enables me to care.”
