Never Too Old to Make Beautiful Music : * Seniors: Malcolm Heuring played cornet in a cavalry unit chasing Pancho Villa in 1916. Now a young 97, he plays the viola for a community orchestra.

Even when problems with his dentures started taking the bite out of his trumpet playing, Malcolm Heuring refused to give up music.

Instead, he laid aside his trumpet and picked up the viola. It was a smooth transition. The 97-year-old now plays in the viola section of the Brentwood-Westwood Symphony.

“I lost my upper teeth,” the musician said recently in his neat Santa Monica home. “With a denture, blowing a trumpet is sort of tricky.”

Heuring’s engaging wit makes it easy to forget that he is almost 100 years old. But he has a story that stretches back in history, a story of a life centered on music.

Heuring was born in Lexington, Ill., in 1894. At 10, he learned to play his first instrument--a cornet that his father gave him.

After graduating from high school in Colorado, Heuring had to make career choices. He was sure of three things: He wanted to play the cornet in a band, he loved the mountains and he liked horses.

So it seemed only natural that the year 1916 found him playing the cornet on horseback, for the 5th Cavalry of the U.S. Army.

“We never blew right over the horses’ heads,” Heuring said, pointing to himself in an old black-and-white photo of his 28-member mounted band. “We blew to the side. Band horses were well trained. You could even let go of the reins and (play with) both hands.”

The 5th Cavalry’s band and two regiments were called to Columbus, N.M., shortly after the border town had been raided by bandits. Heuring remembers that victims’ bodies were still being burned when he arrived.

After the cavalry secured the town, the band joined the punitive expedition into Mexico led by Gen. John J. Pershing.

“We were supposed to be chasing Pancho Villa, the so-called bandit,” Heuring said, adding that he did not agree with the popular belief that the Mexican revolutionary and outlaw was responsible for the raid on Columbus. “They blamed him for everything.”

The expedition returned to a camp outside El Paso, Tex., without having found Villa. While stationed there, the band played in daily concerts in the bandstand, as well as on horseback during parades.

One of Heuring’s favorite memories is an encounter with Pershing during a ball in Ft. Bliss, Tex., where the band was asked to perform.

Cornets tucked under their arms, Heuring and a friend slipped away for a drink into a cocktail lounge reserved for officers. The bartender refused to serve them.

George C. Patton, then a lieutenant, came in, took one look at their uniforms and ordered them out. He was followed by Gen. Pershing.

“(Pershing) said, ‘What’s going on here?’ ” Heuring recalled. “ ‘Can you play those things? Well, play me a tune.’ We played for a while, and Pershing said, ‘OK, have a drink.’ I had a Manhattan cocktail. He said, ‘You through?’ We said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He said, ‘Well, then, get the hell out of here.’ ”

After seven years of rigorous cavalry life, Heuring returned to Colorado and joined a band. Each Saturday he drove to Kansas City, Mo., to study the trumpet under a master player.

The two instruments differ slightly. The cornet is smaller and sweeter-sounding than the trumpet. The latter is most often used in orchestras, whereas the cornet is most often used in bands.

Over the next few years, Heuring sat in the orchestra pits of vaudeville houses and silent movie theaters in Kansas City and Denver. His trumpet helped provide musical accompaniment to otherwise soundless entertainment.

A job as leader of a band at what is now Veterans Hospital brought Heuring to West Los Angeles in 1926. During the summers, he kept busy with this job and another job playing by the sea in an orchestra sponsored by the city of Hermosa Beach.

But it was hard to get jobs during the winter months, so Heuring took on a full-time post as admissions clerk for Veterans Hospital. Although he still played a bit, he did not keep it up enough to remain at a professional level. His primary musical avocation was to be the bandleader for the Santa Monica Elks Club.

He continued to work for the Veterans Administration, becoming an insurance officer. He retired in 1960 and became president of the local chapter of the National Assn. of Retired Federal Employees.

It was in that capacity that he met his wife, Lillian, now 91--it was the third marriage for both--and also got back into playing the trumpet.

“She wanted to make an announcement about a concert of the Brentwood-Westwood Symphony,” Heuring said. “I told her I used to play the trumpet, and that I’d like to come and at least try to get into the orchestra.”

Lillian, whom Heuring married 13 years ago, is the mother of the conductor of the symphony.

Heuring showed up for rehearsals and began playing the trumpet with the symphony soon thereafter.

Heuring sat behind the viola section of the orchestra and began to admire the sound of the stringed instrument, which falls between a violin and a cello.

Finding it increasingly difficult to play the trumpet because of his dentures, Heuring asked the principal violist to teach him how to play the viola. Six months of dedicated practice later, Heuring took a seat in the viola section and began rehearsals with a new voice.

Heuring kept playing the trumpet during those six months, but gave it up as soon as he moved to the viola section. He is still called upon to play trumpet for the orchestra occasionally.

Conductor Alvin Mills said Heuring is a natural.

“He’s a good student, and he’s an inspiration to everybody. When people say, ‘It’s too difficult,’ or ‘I’m too old,’ I say, ‘Look to your left.’ ”

Heuring added emphatically: “You don’t ever want to get thinking that you’re too old.”