She’s given hundreds of kids the gift of music!
When Leslie Cooper’s 8-year- old son, Doyle, yearned to play the trumpet, a generous babysitter loaned him her old school instrument. That act of kindness resonated deeply with Leslie, and so the New Orleans mom made it her mission to keep passing it on
“Listen!” 8-year-old Doyle Cooper shouted to his mom, Leslie, when she came to pick him up from the sitter. Doyle blew a loud bleat on a trumpet, then smiled. “I found it under Miss Lindy’s bed. She says I can borrow it!”
“He’s been blowing on toy horns since he was 2,” Leslie, a jazz musician and part-time DJ, thanked her friend. “He’s always wanted a real trumpet.”
Doyle practiced and took lessons. At 12, he was the youngest trumpeter ever to perform at the Satchmo Summerfest, New Orleans’ annual tribute to Louis Armstrong.
“He plays like that on a banged-up 40-year-old horn?” audience members marveled.
And it wasn’t long before Leslie received not one but four donated brand-new trumpets.
Doyle picked his favorite, returned the borrowed horn, and Leslie stowed the others. Until the day Doyle came home, excited, and explained his friend, Xavier, also wanted to play trumpet. “Can we give him one of ours?”
“Sure,” said Leslie, and she got to thinking about all the other would-be music students with struggling parents. So she took the two trumpets they had left and asked the music teacher at Doyle’s school to help her get them to deserving kids.
“Really? For me?” asked one of the amazed recipients.
“When do we have to give them back?” asked the other.
“Never. They’re yours, with two conditions,” Leslie explained. “First, you have to invite me to your recitals, and if you ever get a better instrument or stop playing, you have to pass them on to someone else.”
“Deal!” the young musicians grinned from ear to ear.
Seeing their joy, Leslie knew she had to do more.
“School budgets have been cut to the bone. Lots of kids have to double up on band instruments, and they have to leave them at school—they can’t practice at home,” she told friends and area musicians.
New Orleanians responded by emptying their closets of old band horns, keyboards and drums, and Pass It On was born (Passitonnola.com). Over the past 17 years, Leslie has passed along hundreds of instruments, and a number of students have gone on to receive college scholarships to study music. And that’s music to Leslie’s ears.
“Education is about more than math, science and English,” says Leslie. “Music is also important, especially here in New Orleans. We’re a city of music, but if our kids can’t learn to play, our community will lose its very heart and soul. But this helps lift up the next generation of musicians, and I am thrilled to be part of that.”