Jim Underwood: The Legacy

James B. Underwood was principal trumpet player for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra from 1988 through 2006. Born in Kokomo, Indiana, he studied music at Interlochen and the University of Michigan. Before coming to Columbus, he played for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Concert Band, the Michigan Opera and Theater, and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, and the United States Marine Band. His musical legacy is well established and documented in a Dissertation written by Professor James M. Stokes, DMA.

But there was another side of Jim Underwood that will now—four years after his death—contribute further to his legacy in a significant way. Underwood, the family man, met his wife Marti at a concert in Warren, Michigan in 1976. It was not long until he proposed marriage over an ice cream sundae, and just two months later, in August, they were married. Jim and Marti raised three children: Sonya, Al and Jamie.

Marti remembers: “Jim was a resourceful person who could do whatever he set out to do. For example, he became an accomplished wood worker in a shop he built in our garage.” Jim had owned and ridden motorcycles as a young man, but had given them up to pursue family and career. In 1996, he decided it was time to return to motorcycling, but being the man he was, he had no interest in going out to buy one. Rather, Jim was going to build his own, from the wheels up, and he began to study the task and buy components for a custom machine he envisioned in his mind. The first part was a Harley-Davidson engine, purchased in 1996, but the build did not begin until 1998, right in the Underwood living room!

All of the essential parts were acquired, and the rolling chassis was mocked up. But the project stalled in 2002 when Underwood was diagnosed with cancer of the salivary gland on the right side of his mouth, a devastating form of the disease for a man who made his living playing a trumpet. He had surgeries in 2002 and 2004, and underwent more than 60 radiation treatments. Tissue was removed from the right side of his face, which disfigured his mouth. But Underwood designed a special mouthpiece for his trumpet, and continued his career, to the astonishment of all of his colleagues. He delivered a flawless performance of the difficult Mahler's Fifth in April, 2006.

Four months after his performance of Mahler—in August, 2006—Jim died. His unfinished motorcycle sat in the living room for another four years. Marti says, “I kept thinking I would find a way for that project to mean something for Jim. I learned that selling it for parts would raise very little money, and I could not find anyone interested in finishing the project.”

This changed early in 2010 when Marti met Mark Beckner, the owner of Beckner's House of Rides, a custom motorcycle and automobile builder in Newark, Ohio. Beckner's shop had already become a sponsor for projects managed by Ohio Motorcyclists for Children, and he was immediately inspired by the possibilities. Marti Underwood agreed to donate the bike to OMC if it could be used to raise money for Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, and Beckner agreed to complete the build.

At this moment, Jim Underwood's dream motorcycle is being finished by Jamie Wilson, a talented builder whose father also is a cancer victim. In August, a five-month fund-raising raffle will be conducted by Ohio Motorcyclists for Children to raise as much money as possible for OSUCCC-James. And another chapter will be added to Jim Underwood's legacy.