My Musical Biography, Part 1

I don’t know how I caught the bug for saxophone. I certainly didn’t come from a musical family. My parents had a Dean Martin record, a Frank Sinatra record, and Andy Williams singing Moon River. My big brother once had a friend who played accordion at Bar Mitzvahs when I was real small. We had an organ in the living room but nobody in the family could play it. My parents were a young couple in New York in the late 40’s around the time 52^nd Street was hot, so maybe that rubbed off on me somehow. My dad did have an 8-track tape player in his car.

I grew up in rust belt Terre Haute, Indiana and went to the world’s best elementary school ever, the Lab School. In fifth or sixth grade music was mandatory and we were divided into choir, orchestra, and band. I couldn’t sing worth a darn and still can’t, so choir was out; I hated the sound of violins and still do, so orchestra was out; so band was it for me. I remember being taken into the band instrument room at Lab School and staring in awe at the racks of instrument cases. I still remember the smell – the musty old instrument case aroma of my current practice room reminds me of that – cognitive bliss since sensory memory is so intense. My first instrument was a plastic Bundy clarinet. My first band teacher was the legendary Wilburn Elrod. In junior high we took the yellow school bus up to Elkhart, then the band instrument capital of the world, and toured the Conn factory. Wow. Must’ve been a few years before some wise accountant figured that moving production to Tijuana would save a few bucks.