EconTalk · Russ Roberts

The Perfect Tuba: How Band, Grit, and Community Build a Better Life (with Sam Quinones)

December 1, 2025·1 hr 1 min·5 clips

Sam Quinones explains why the tuba is the mirror opposite of opioid addiction.

The book starts humbly. Roberts says he came to The Perfect Tuba knowing almost nothing about tubas and not much more about band, so the curiosity feels real. Quinones then puts the story in the Rio Grande Valley, an almost entirely Hispanic region where many students could barely afford instruments, let alone lessons. Al Cortina sees talent getting lost. After years in the classroom, he starts thinking about how to hold onto it. The threat is close by, not theoretical. Quinones describes drug cartels in the area, with easy money, fancy cars, and a louder story about what success could look like. Band competition adds its own pressure. In Texas, as Quinones tells it, band was starting to feel like football, complete with winners, placements, and statewide stakes. Cortina responds with a plain, serious idea: build the program around continuity. At Roma High School in Roma, Texas, he persuades the board and superintendent to hire ten band directors, one for each instrument. A clarinet student, a French horn student, a percussionist, or a tuba player would keep moving through school with someone who really knew that instrument. That was the retention play. Cortina believed students were slipping away around eighth or ninth grade, and this gave them a better shot at staying. Roberts keeps listening for the bigger claim, but the episode does not float away from the tuba. Band becomes a place to practice focus, perseverance, collaboration, and hard work. Quinones sounds genuinely moved by the stories and grateful to have told them. The warmth stays restrained. The episode is about a bass horn, yes, but also about a school and community giving talented kids something sturdier than drift.

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