saxophones

Rod Baltimore has been a music retailer in New York for over 40 years. Much of that time was spent on the famed 48th street music central. Working with brass and woodwinds, Rod has maintained one of the most sought after repair shops in the state and often does work for customers outside the state and country. His career is highlighted by stories of Manny’s Music across the street and Sam Ash as well as the many friends and celebrities he has worked with over the years.

Buddy Collette has changed music in more than one way. As a noted reed man, he has played jazz along some of the greatest players in history including his boyhood friend, Charlie Mingus. Buddy was instrumental in the birth of the Los Angeles jazz scene. Beginning in the late 1940s, Buddy set out to break the color line within the American musicians’ union, which at the time separated the black performers from the whites within their directories.

Larry Fresch has worked by day as a sales manager for piano and organ companies and by night as an accomplished saxophone player and singer in Southern California. He grew up in Sandusky, Ohio, where his father had a music retail store. Young Larry began playing the accordion before switching to the saxophone at the age of ten. He enlisted in the United States Navy and attended the Navy Music School in Washington, DC. Larry performed on many Goodwill Tours including those for wounded soldiers returning home from Vietnam.

James “Red” Holloway is an accomplished jazz saxophone player who began his love affair with music while a student of Captain Walter Dyette at DuSable High School in Chicago back in 1942. He recalls his first paying gig at 16 with the band of Gene Wright, who later went on to become a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Red talks of the wonderful jazz clubs he worked in Chicago in the 1940’s and 50’s. In recent years, Red has worked with Clark Terry. He shares some of his comments with him.

Carl Janelli plays several instruments but is most fond of the saxophone. He began his career during the big band era and performed with Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey before embarking on a wonderful career in the Broadway show orchestras. His stories of the shows and stars he worked with are engaging and his love of music is inspiring. In recent years Carl plays along side his wife and both are noted saxophone teachers in the San Diego area.

Pete LaPlaca is a well respected industry leader who has added his great musical passion to the creation, development and marketing of musical products going back to the 1960s. Pete was a leading sales manager for a number of companies during his career, among them G. Leblanc, F. E. Olds and Gibson Guitars. He later became Vice President and General Manager of the Lincolnwood, Illinois, offices of Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI).

Charles McPherson has thoroughly enjoyed his life as a music maker.  The jazz saxophonist was strongly influenced by the players of the big band era, such as Johnny Hodges who played in the Duke Ellington orchestra for many years.  Charles took what he heard and played his own style during the formative years of bebop and free jazz.  What he sought was a way to express himself that was not only his unique sound, but conveyed his unique thoughts and ideas within his music.  As a composer he craf

James Moody and his saxophone have graced many NAMM Shows over the decades and has become a good friend to many within the industry. As you witness him strolling the show floor and encountering friends with a smile at nearly every step, it is easy to see why he is one of the most beloved jazz musicians in history. He created a unique tone and style of playing jazz, beginning in the Bebop era, inspiring generations of music making. When the trumpeter Clark Terry was asked who Moody recorded with during his career, Clark replied with one word, “everyone.”

Dave Pell has had a long and remarkable life in music. As a saxophonist he played with many of the top dance band in the later years of the Big Band Era, including Les Brown and his band of renown. As a photographer he covered the long-playing albums for most of TOPS records during the 1950s, including several featuring an unknown model named Mary Tyler Moore. As a producer he foster hits from a number of acts in the 1950s and 60s including “With Pen In Hand” by Vicki Carr.

Houston Person, after a 3-year old musical partnership with the great vocalist Etta Jones, is only now receiving the recognition he deserves as one of today’s leading instrumentalists in the tradition of Gene Ammons and Stanley Turrentine. Since Etta’s passing, Houston has concentrated on working with some of today’s best Hammond B-3 players; performing blues-oriented soulful jazz, “please music” as Houston likes to call it.