(Originally published April 2, 2009)
1985, Age 13. “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” from The Genius of Charlie Parker, Vol. 2: April In Paris. Parker With Strings.
I started playing saxophone when I was 11 years old and in the 7th grade. The previous year, the band director from the junior high school had come to speak to our sixth-grade elementary classes about joining the band. He brought with him a group of students to demonstrate each of the instruments. They each took a turn playing a short melody and were met with appropriate “oohing” and “ahhing.” I don’t remember what the saxophonist played, but I remember what she looked like: red hair, green eyes . . . cute. Her name was Pam.
It was a foregone conclusion on my part that I would play the saxophone. My chosen career path at that point was “rock star,” and learning to play the saxophone seemed like a sensible educational decision. You couldn’t play guitar or bass in the band and I didn’t want to play drums, so there you go. Plus it just looked really cool. I was pretty sure it would be a good way to meet girls.
I didn’t know the names of any saxophone players, at least any professional ones. Both my older sister and my mom had played saxophone in the band, but I hadn’t ever actually heard either of them play. I knew that Bowie had played some saxophone on his records, but in my mind he was a singer. I had heard plenty of saxophonists on pop records, but these were sidemen and I hadn’t yet learned to value them for what they were.
The first year with the horn was a drag. Maybe it’s because the first year in junior high school is a drag for everyone. The main memory I have of the year is the sense of dread that seemed to follow me. I dreaded the locker room in gym. I dreaded leaving the locker room to see what mockery was planned for class that day. I dreaded seeing Randy Legowski or the Reddens, Shady Junior High’s resident terrorists. I dreaded math. Some days I dreaded going home. I guess I dreaded band class, too. Mr. Jones was not what most people would have called a “congenial” teacher. We had regular playing tests and we were assigned chairs depending on how we did. There were five saxophones in the class; I often sat fifth chair. I think I was first chair one time, but that was because someone was sick.
The horn didn’t help much, either. It was a used Bundy II with rubber pads and – I didn’t know it at the time – a warped mouthpiece. (Someone had given it to us, a family member I think. I had boiled the mouthpiece to sterilize it on the advice of friends, not considering what the effect might be on plastic.) The thing was leaky and cheap and Mr. Jones regularly told me what an inferior horn it was. We turned in practice sheets on Mondays to show that we had practiced the required half hour each night. I’m not sure I ever practiced a half hour for the whole week. I hated being with the thing. The Universe, not content to fill my life with teenage sadists who ridiculed me in the school hallway, had now provided me with an inanimate object whose sole purpose seemed to mock my musical ineptitude.
Mr. Jones was old school. He taught through intimidation and drill and his methods had thus far produced admirable results. While no one at school would have described the band as “cool” (I seem to remember “band fag” being a favorite moniker), everyone knew they were good. The marching band won every competition they attended and they had more members in the All-County band than any other school. Whatever else you might say about him, Mr. Jones knew what he was doing.
In addition to our regular forays in the Belwin Elementary Band Method, Mr. Jones would occasionally pontificate on a variety of subjects. One of his favorites was the subject of “listening.” One day toward the end of the school year, he turned to a clarinetist who was struggling to make an acceptable sound on her instrument and said, “Do you know what that instrument is supposed to sound like? Have you listened to any professional clarinetists?” The student stared back with a mixture of fear and mystification. It was clear that she had not even considered the possibility of such a thing as a “professional clarinetist.”
Mr. Jones continued to press the student: “Can you name any professional clarinetists?” The girl’s face went blank. He turned to the class and said, “Each one of you should be able to name musicians who play your horn. How do you expect to sound good if you don’t even listen to your instrument?” We all knew what was coming next.
He looked at a one of the girls holding a flute in the first row. “Can you name any professional flautists?” She didn’t even venture a guess. Then he looked at me.
“Jack, can you give us the names of any famous saxophonists?”
“David Bowie?” I ventured. Now it was his turn to look mystified. He walked to the board.
“Get out a sheet of paper,” he said.
Mr. Jones gave us a short list of musicians on each of our instruments that we should all be listening to. We dutifully copied these lists onto our paper.
I don’t remember the entire list Mr. Jones gave us, but I do remember one name: Charlie Parker. I remember that name because that night I went to the public library and saw a Charlie Parker record in one of the bins marked “JAZZ.” I decided to check it out. The record was an LP called The Genius of Charlie Parker, Vol. 2: April in Paris. Parker With Strings. As best as I could tell, they didn’t have The Genius of Charlie Parker, Vol. 1.
I was a big fan of the public library. I always had half a dozen books checked out and when I discovered you could check out records, I was there almost every week. Since the library held only a small collection of pop and rock records, most of the items I checked out were folk or classical music. I remember checking out autoharpist Brian Bowers’ View From Home and a collection of Sousa marches. (Yes, I checked out a record of Sousa marches. On a side note, I had Brian Bowers as a guest in my middle school classroom years later. He’s really allergic to cats and refused to even shake my hand when he found out I had three at home.) The only pop record I ever remember getting was The Beatles’ White Album and that was on cassette.
The Charlie Parker record was a compilation on Verve and had this blurry casual photo of Bird on the cover that had been colored. On the same visit I decided to see if I could find some other saxophone records and I grabbed the only one I saw featuring saxophone that wasn’t jazz. It was called Winds of Change and it was a recording of the Northwestern University Wind Ensemble. One of the pieces they played was the Ross Lee Finney Concerto, featuring alto saxophonist Fred Hemke.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever had an experience that could properly be called “an epiphany.” Maybe it’s that I am a slow learner or that my revelations come more by drips than floods. Listening to Bird for the first time wasn’t an epiphany, but it may be the closest thing I’ve ever had. All the “jazz” records in my parents’ collection were mostly pop and swing tunes from the 30s and 40s: Glen Miller, Tex Beneke, Tommy Dorsey . . . all the usual white suspects. This record was different. I played just enough saxophone at this point to be amazed by the long, melodic flights he took on his horn. It was so unlike anything else I had ever heard. The record was a perfect introduction to jazz for me. He was playing a lot of tunes I had heard from my parents before like “I’m In The Mood For Love” and “April In Paris.” The solos were essentially developments of the heads of each tune with Bird weaving in and out of the string section. I loved it from the first time I put it on.
The back cover had a photo of Charlie Parker in session with the orchestra, led by Mitch Miller (yes, that Mitch Miller, he of bouncing ball fame). Since that time I have heard numerous critics and even fans dismiss this record as a fancy of Bird’s that obscured his genius. A lot of jazz purists hate it. Charlie Parker himself said that those sides were his favorites of everything he had recorded. I taped a copy of it onto a Maxell 90 minute cassette and played it a few hundred times over the next five years or so. It was the tape that I played for my first date with my future wife. I bought a deluxe edition of the album on CD when it came out and then bought the album on 78s from eBay years after that. It remains one of my favorite records for all sorts of listening and I recommend it to absolutely everyone with even a passing interest in music.
The other record I picked up – the one with the Northwestern University Wind Ensemble – had a big influence, too. It was my first foray into contemporary art music and I was astounded by what I heard, especially from Fred Hemke’s saxophone. He played far above the normal range of the saxophone – the liner notes informed me that this was called the instrument’s “altissimo” register – and I was probably more impressed by Hemke’s technical virtuosity than Bird’s.
So, one trip the library, two records and a complete change in the direction my life would take, although I didn’t yet know it. Before the summer break, I asked Mr. Jones if I could borrow a tenor saxophone that belonged to the school and he said, “Yes.” It wasn’t a great instrument, but it played better than my alto. That summer I pulled the horn out more and more often and hated it less and less. I made more trips to the library and listened to other saxophonists: Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges. I was no prodigy on the horn, but I became a reasonably respectable junior high school musician. I started taking lessons after school, first with Mr. Jones and then with a college saxophone player who was home the next summer. I took lessons with a music professor at a nearby college who had a license plate that said, “DR JAZZ.” I picked up a baritone saxophone for a while and had fun with it, too. Eventually my parents bought me nice tenor – a Selmer – and I didn’t have to worry about all the mechanical problems I was having with the horns from school. I got an alto in high school, too. I also heard my first Coltrane record, Blue Train, though this one came from the record store instead of the library. I even made the All-State Band on tenor one year in high school. Several of my best friends were saxophone players – some of them a lot better than me. I even dated a girl who played saxophone.
When it came time for college, I knew what I wanted to do. The saxophone was integral to my identity. With it, I felt less insecure and more like the person I wanted to be. My edges seemed a little less blurry with the saxophone; it was easier to tell where I began and everything else ended.
I enrolled as a music major at West Virginia University in the fall of 1990. My studio teacher David Hastings had been a student of Fred Hemke – the saxophonist I had heard on that record back in 7th grade. Mr. Hastings even remembered when the record was made. I went to grad school studying saxophone with a couple of other hip players, Curtis Johnson and Paul Scea; one reminded me of Cannonball Adderley and the other of Eric Dolphy. Then I married that saxophone player I dated in high school, though she now had a square job as a lawyer. Four of my five groomsmen were saxophonists, too. Even the ring-bearer played saxophone when he was a little older.
That pretty much brings us up to date. These days I don’t get to play saxophone as much as I want or practice as much as I need; that’s one of the paradoxes of being a music teacher. Still, I take the horn out as often as I can and I listen all the time. I guess I have Mr. Jones to thank for that. Mr. Jones and Charlie Parker.
1985, Age 13. “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” from The Genius of Charlie Parker, Vol. 2: April In Paris. Parker With Strings.
I started playing saxophone when I was 11 years old and in the 7th grade. The previous year, the band director from the junior high school had come to speak to our sixth-grade elementary classes about joining the band. He brought with him a group of students to demonstrate each of the instruments. They each took a turn playing a short melody and were met with appropriate “oohing” and “ahhing.” I don’t remember what the saxophonist played, but I remember what she looked like: red hair, green eyes . . . cute. Her name was Pam.
It was a foregone conclusion on my part that I would play the saxophone. My chosen career path at that point was “rock star,” and learning to play the saxophone seemed like a sensible educational decision. You couldn’t play guitar or bass in the band and I didn’t want to play drums, so there you go. Plus it just looked really cool. I was pretty sure it would be a good way to meet girls.
I didn’t know the names of any saxophone players, at least any professional ones. Both my older sister and my mom had played saxophone in the band, but I hadn’t ever actually heard either of them play. I knew that Bowie had played some saxophone on his records, but in my mind he was a singer. I had heard plenty of saxophonists on pop records, but these were sidemen and I hadn’t yet learned to value them for what they were.
The first year with the horn was a drag. Maybe it’s because the first year in junior high school is a drag for everyone. The main memory I have of the year is the sense of dread that seemed to follow me. I dreaded the locker room in gym. I dreaded leaving the locker room to see what mockery was planned for class that day. I dreaded seeing Randy Legowski or the Reddens, Shady Junior High’s resident terrorists. I dreaded math. Some days I dreaded going home. I guess I dreaded band class, too. Mr. Jones was not what most people would have called a “congenial” teacher. We had regular playing tests and we were assigned chairs depending on how we did. There were five saxophones in the class; I often sat fifth chair. I think I was first chair one time, but that was because someone was sick.
The horn didn’t help much, either. It was a used Bundy II with rubber pads and – I didn’t know it at the time – a warped mouthpiece. (Someone had given it to us, a family member I think. I had boiled the mouthpiece to sterilize it on the advice of friends, not considering what the effect might be on plastic.) The thing was leaky and cheap and Mr. Jones regularly told me what an inferior horn it was. We turned in practice sheets on Mondays to show that we had practiced the required half hour each night. I’m not sure I ever practiced a half hour for the whole week. I hated being with the thing. The Universe, not content to fill my life with teenage sadists who ridiculed me in the school hallway, had now provided me with an inanimate object whose sole purpose seemed to mock my musical ineptitude.
Mr. Jones was old school. He taught through intimidation and drill and his methods had thus far produced admirable results. While no one at school would have described the band as “cool” (I seem to remember “band fag” being a favorite moniker), everyone knew they were good. The marching band won every competition they attended and they had more members in the All-County band than any other school. Whatever else you might say about him, Mr. Jones knew what he was doing.
In addition to our regular forays in the Belwin Elementary Band Method, Mr. Jones would occasionally pontificate on a variety of subjects. One of his favorites was the subject of “listening.” One day toward the end of the school year, he turned to a clarinetist who was struggling to make an acceptable sound on her instrument and said, “Do you know what that instrument is supposed to sound like? Have you listened to any professional clarinetists?” The student stared back with a mixture of fear and mystification. It was clear that she had not even considered the possibility of such a thing as a “professional clarinetist.”
Mr. Jones continued to press the student: “Can you name any professional clarinetists?” The girl’s face went blank. He turned to the class and said, “Each one of you should be able to name musicians who play your horn. How do you expect to sound good if you don’t even listen to your instrument?” We all knew what was coming next.
He looked at a one of the girls holding a flute in the first row. “Can you name any professional flautists?” She didn’t even venture a guess. Then he looked at me.
“Jack, can you give us the names of any famous saxophonists?”
“David Bowie?” I ventured. Now it was his turn to look mystified. He walked to the board.
“Get out a sheet of paper,” he said.
Mr. Jones gave us a short list of musicians on each of our instruments that we should all be listening to. We dutifully copied these lists onto our paper.
I don’t remember the entire list Mr. Jones gave us, but I do remember one name: Charlie Parker. I remember that name because that night I went to the public library and saw a Charlie Parker record in one of the bins marked “JAZZ.” I decided to check it out. The record was an LP called The Genius of Charlie Parker, Vol. 2: April in Paris. Parker With Strings. As best as I could tell, they didn’t have The Genius of Charlie Parker, Vol. 1.
I was a big fan of the public library. I always had half a dozen books checked out and when I discovered you could check out records, I was there almost every week. Since the library held only a small collection of pop and rock records, most of the items I checked out were folk or classical music. I remember checking out autoharpist Brian Bowers’ View From Home and a collection of Sousa marches. (Yes, I checked out a record of Sousa marches. On a side note, I had Brian Bowers as a guest in my middle school classroom years later. He’s really allergic to cats and refused to even shake my hand when he found out I had three at home.) The only pop record I ever remember getting was The Beatles’ White Album and that was on cassette.
The Charlie Parker record was a compilation on Verve and had this blurry casual photo of Bird on the cover that had been colored. On the same visit I decided to see if I could find some other saxophone records and I grabbed the only one I saw featuring saxophone that wasn’t jazz. It was called Winds of Change and it was a recording of the Northwestern University Wind Ensemble. One of the pieces they played was the Ross Lee Finney Concerto, featuring alto saxophonist Fred Hemke.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever had an experience that could properly be called “an epiphany.” Maybe it’s that I am a slow learner or that my revelations come more by drips than floods. Listening to Bird for the first time wasn’t an epiphany, but it may be the closest thing I’ve ever had. All the “jazz” records in my parents’ collection were mostly pop and swing tunes from the 30s and 40s: Glen Miller, Tex Beneke, Tommy Dorsey . . . all the usual white suspects. This record was different. I played just enough saxophone at this point to be amazed by the long, melodic flights he took on his horn. It was so unlike anything else I had ever heard. The record was a perfect introduction to jazz for me. He was playing a lot of tunes I had heard from my parents before like “I’m In The Mood For Love” and “April In Paris.” The solos were essentially developments of the heads of each tune with Bird weaving in and out of the string section. I loved it from the first time I put it on.
The back cover had a photo of Charlie Parker in session with the orchestra, led by Mitch Miller (yes, that Mitch Miller, he of bouncing ball fame). Since that time I have heard numerous critics and even fans dismiss this record as a fancy of Bird’s that obscured his genius. A lot of jazz purists hate it. Charlie Parker himself said that those sides were his favorites of everything he had recorded. I taped a copy of it onto a Maxell 90 minute cassette and played it a few hundred times over the next five years or so. It was the tape that I played for my first date with my future wife. I bought a deluxe edition of the album on CD when it came out and then bought the album on 78s from eBay years after that. It remains one of my favorite records for all sorts of listening and I recommend it to absolutely everyone with even a passing interest in music.
The other record I picked up – the one with the Northwestern University Wind Ensemble – had a big influence, too. It was my first foray into contemporary art music and I was astounded by what I heard, especially from Fred Hemke’s saxophone. He played far above the normal range of the saxophone – the liner notes informed me that this was called the instrument’s “altissimo” register – and I was probably more impressed by Hemke’s technical virtuosity than Bird’s.
So, one trip the library, two records and a complete change in the direction my life would take, although I didn’t yet know it. Before the summer break, I asked Mr. Jones if I could borrow a tenor saxophone that belonged to the school and he said, “Yes.” It wasn’t a great instrument, but it played better than my alto. That summer I pulled the horn out more and more often and hated it less and less. I made more trips to the library and listened to other saxophonists: Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges. I was no prodigy on the horn, but I became a reasonably respectable junior high school musician. I started taking lessons after school, first with Mr. Jones and then with a college saxophone player who was home the next summer. I took lessons with a music professor at a nearby college who had a license plate that said, “DR JAZZ.” I picked up a baritone saxophone for a while and had fun with it, too. Eventually my parents bought me nice tenor – a Selmer – and I didn’t have to worry about all the mechanical problems I was having with the horns from school. I got an alto in high school, too. I also heard my first Coltrane record, Blue Train, though this one came from the record store instead of the library. I even made the All-State Band on tenor one year in high school. Several of my best friends were saxophone players – some of them a lot better than me. I even dated a girl who played saxophone.
When it came time for college, I knew what I wanted to do. The saxophone was integral to my identity. With it, I felt less insecure and more like the person I wanted to be. My edges seemed a little less blurry with the saxophone; it was easier to tell where I began and everything else ended.
I enrolled as a music major at West Virginia University in the fall of 1990. My studio teacher David Hastings had been a student of Fred Hemke – the saxophonist I had heard on that record back in 7th grade. Mr. Hastings even remembered when the record was made. I went to grad school studying saxophone with a couple of other hip players, Curtis Johnson and Paul Scea; one reminded me of Cannonball Adderley and the other of Eric Dolphy. Then I married that saxophone player I dated in high school, though she now had a square job as a lawyer. Four of my five groomsmen were saxophonists, too. Even the ring-bearer played saxophone when he was a little older.
That pretty much brings us up to date. These days I don’t get to play saxophone as much as I want or practice as much as I need; that’s one of the paradoxes of being a music teacher. Still, I take the horn out as often as I can and I listen all the time. I guess I have Mr. Jones to thank for that. Mr. Jones and Charlie Parker.
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