Joe Wilder began by indicating that his father was a cornet player who switched to tuba. In the early 1920s and 1930s, his father started him on the cornet. Wilder studied with a number of commercial players and learned from a musician, Frederick Griffen, who knew the Arban book by heart and was a good taskmaster for a young cornet player. During the depression, Wilder listened to all kinds of bands on the radio, often with his father pointing out the different styles among the performers. Wilder listened to Duke Ellington's band and all the bands that were broadcast live from various hotels. A wonderful mix of approaches influenced his sound and style. Wilder especially noted Cootie Williams and his plunger playing as a major influence ­ Wilder got carried away and played a waltz with a plunger on one occasion. Others who helped fashion his concept were Charlie Shavers, Roy Eldridge, and Del Staigers. Among trumpet players, Wilder is one of the few to also acknowledge that alto sax players were equally important. He would often practice their solos.

Warren Vaché started playing in elementary school. His father was a bass player who performed in a Dixieland group. He began playing trumpet because his father told him, "Don't play bass. No one ever tells you what key you're in." His father had an extensive collection of 78-RPM recordings that Vaché listened continually, especially those by Louis Armstrong. He began playing along with the recordings. At the age of eight, he had contests with his father while listening to the recordings ­ a kind of "name that trumpet player" game at which Vaché became adept. Looking for a particular sound, Vaché walked into a music store one day and picked up a cornet. He found the darker and mellow sound was more to his liking and then switched to the cornet. He still feels it that for his purposes the cornet is more flexible than the trumpet in coloring his sound. In terms of his style, Vaché said, "I have stolen from everyone who has walked on the planet. My style is a distillation of everyone I've heard."

Terell Stafford began his playing as a classically trained musician and indicated that he "came late to jazz." In fact, he quit playing for a short period and through the encouragement of Wynton Marsalis, he returned to the horn and eventually earned a master's degree in trumpet. His earliest influences began with classical players such as Maurice André and Adolph Herseth. Stafford's father was a big jazz fan, especially favoring Cannonball Adderley. Although Stafford played for a jazz band in college, he indicated that he was not a jazz payer because he had not yet learned the vocabulary of jazz. This came later after a great deal of work. He was told that since he started "late" that it was almost useless to pursue jazz. However, he discarded that notion and reminded everyone in the audience that if anyone wanted to play jazz, all that is necessary is to start learning the language.