Here are some laws that I would like to see passed on the federal level so that they effect every state in the nation plus Puerto Rico and, if there’s any way to swing it, Canada, because I sometimes go there:

1. Electric guitars banned from all forms of jazz. The problem is, it would have to be, somehow, retroactive. I don’t care, for instance, if Wynton Marsallis is backed by an electric guitar because I don’t listen to his music. And Miles was pretty cool about it – i.e. he eschewed them – except that really awful album recorded live at the Cafe Au Go Go in the Village.

2. All forms of brass instruments must be banned from all forms of classical music. Again, retroactivity is a must, although I haven’t figured out how to do that.

3. The trombone is to be banned, period. People should never be allowed to play the trombone and, frankly, I don’t think people should be able to carry a trombone, speak about a trombone or … well, I suppose if they want to think about trombones, that’s their business but don’t let me into your thoughts, buster, or you’re busted.

Numbers 1 and 2 are probably easy to understand – the trumpet, for instance, is an instrument of jazz and should remain there; the violin, the viola, the cello, the piano, things like that, are fine for classical music – but people might wonder why I single out the trombone which, after all, is a brass instrument.

Because it is evil.

If the trombone were, somehow, to develop a life force, it would manifest itself as aliens a la “War of the Worlds,” either the Gene Barry or the Tom Cruise version, or both, and would force humans into the worst form of slavery: listening to trombones.

All of this came to mind recently because I watched the first season of “Treme” via Netflix and because, during my favorite part of the work day – very early morning when I’m the only one in the building and can crank my computer radio – Minnesota Public Radio’s classical station played a piece that included trumpets and, those villains, at least one trombone. I had to race into the other room and quickly switch stations and, as I write this, am listening to a Brahms piece that features no such thing, just violins and cellos, which is the way things should be.

But back to the evil trombone: Where trumpets and saxes (especially the tenor) are necessary for jazz, the trombone is necessary for nothing. It can easily be replaced by a tenor sax or even a baritone, if one needs that depth of sound. The trombone is good for nothing except, if you’re in the local high school band, using the slide to smack the kid in front of you in the back of the head. That’s fine, just don’t make any alleged musical sound while you’re doing it.

Think of the trombone as that thing you are afraid lives in the attic that has the door just above your bed and could come out in the middle of the night, any night, and gobble you up. Yes, that thing. That’s the trombone.

That is not to say that all other brass instruments are harmless. The tenor sax, for instance, in the hands of John Coltrane was a lethal weapon in that it never stopped. Coltrane, who played on the greatest studio jazz album ever, Miles’ “Kind of Blue,” never met a note he didn’t like at least eight times, i.e., if Miles played the same note once, ‘Trane played it, yeah, eight times. Why? Because he could. Oh, yeah, he could play but he never dug the concept that less could be more. Listen to Miles on the opening of “Bye, Bye Blackbird” and that concept shines through. Not for ‘Trane, though, not for ‘Trane.

The tenor also has a clear place in rock ‘n’ roll, even in the hands of a gifted amateur like Clarence Clemons. But you want to hear a tenor that absolutely kicks, you listen to Gary Bonds’ “Quarter to Three” featuring a guy he calls, on the record, Daddy G. Turns out it’s Gene Barge, a tenorman from Norfolk, Va.

Even the Coasters, after they were the Robins, knew the importance of the tenor sax in rock. Here are some of the lyrics, as I remember them, anyway (I WILL NOT Google stuff like this) to “Baby, That is Rock ‘n’ Roll”:

“Did you ever hear a tenor sax, swining like a rusty axe,

“Honkin’ like a frog, down in a hollow log,

“Baby, that is rock ‘n’ roll.”

There’s more, of course, about an electric guitar and a piano, but notice the Coasters open with the sax, right?

And there is ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION OF A TROMBONE.

Many years ago, when I was in the Navy, my closest friend stupidly confessed that, in high school, he had played the trombone. I tried to have him court martialed.

While that was unsuccessful, I was able to ensure that he had no access to such a weapon during the two years we spent on the USS America, even though we had a ship’s band and, I suspect, it included a trombone, or two, which will go far toward explaining why I, as the editor of the ship’s newspaper, NEVER did a story on the ship’s band. That’s right: venality uber alles, eh?

Anyway, as we roll into the new year I want our congresspeople to be thinking seriously about the three laws I have proposed. Really, it’s for everyone’s greater good because, after all, in our modern world, isn’t what is for my greater good for everyone?

Michael Cleveland, a Cabinet reporter, took up the trumpet in sixth grade because Lois Peterson played it, but it didn’t do him any good. He can be vilified by trombone-lovers at mcleveland@nashuatelegraph.com.