Ed Tomlinson is the CEO of California Keyboards Music Center in Bakersfield and a well-regarded piano technician and trainer. After touring the world as part of a Contemporary Christian g...
John Hopkins became best friends with Chuck Surack, the founder of Sweetwater Sound, thanks to one phone call. Running his own heating and air condition company by day and helping his cla...
Pete Brown is a Principal Software Engineer in Windows at Microsoft and oversees the company’s MIDI 2.0 implementation. He grew up in Massachusetts and was introduced to synthesizers whil...
Jeff Jacobs grew up in Chicago and remembers going to Gand Music to buy his first very own instrument, although his parents had an upright piano in their home. Jeff’s purchase was the eve...
Keith Alexander played the important role of Director of Operations for the Los Angeles-based swing band, the Big Band Alumni. The band, whose leader is Bill A. Jones, was established in ...
Randy Hart has played piano and keyboards since he was a kid, however, his early career in the music industry was booking bands in the Washington DC area. One such band was Tractor, for w...
Dave Rivard has thoroughly enjoyed his role at Roland Corporation as a sales rep. He has grown the role over the years and covered nearly every state, making connections, introducing new ...
Doug Beck was hired in the keyboard department at Manny’s Music on the famous 48th street in New York City. The street was lined with musical instrument stores and while Doug worked there...
Chris Martirano started working for Kurzweil Music Systems in 1986. For the first few years he was on the sales side of the equation, originally the district sales manager for the northea...
David Rosenthal has been playing keyboards in Billy Joel’s band since 1993, much of that time as the music director. He’s done everything from arranging Billy’s music for live orchestra t...
Jeff Nelson's mother was a sought-after pianist who had a regular gig in San Francisco playing at the Top of the Mark. As a kid, Jeff took lessons from a woman who had the best name for a...
Brockett Parsons is proud of the musical education he received in grade school, which was furthered by participating in the school band program at his high school. He went on to graduate ...
Mark Stein played an important role in psychedelic rock in the 1960s as keyboardist for Vanilla Fudge. His dad was a singer and was always supportive of Mark’s career in music, which bega...
Adam Darrell is a third generation piano dealer in New Hampshire. His grandfather was a popular singer (Ken Darrell and the Rockaways) who opened several music stores in Philadelphia and...
James Nicoloro worked in a few small piano shops in New England, learning the art of tuning and the skills of restoration. He was asked to provide a piano for a women, who was so pleased ...
Greg Mathieson spoke passionately about his career in music during his NAMM Oral History interview. He brought up some very interesting points, such as his views on working on the road vs...
Les Deutsch is a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientist in the aerospace industry who holds several patents for electronic musical instruments. His father, Ralph Deutsch, invited the s...
David Sancious always had records playing in his home growing up and his dad would take him to jazz clubs when he was just a child to sit by the stage so he could see the piano player. As...
James Sajeva is the Senior Brand Manager for KORG USA, a firm he has worked for since 1996. His passion and love of music began at a young age and throughout his youth KORG instruments we...
Dan Phillips enjoyed his experiences playing drums in his junior high school marching band and singing in the choir. He pursued music in college and became fascinated with the quickly dev...
Benmont Tench was drawn to music at an early age playing piano and being interested in composing and songwriting. He would frequent local music stores and check out all the new instrument...
Ed Eagan was strongly encouraged and inspired by his music teachers growing up including his high school orchestra instructor who flamed Ed’s love of making music. While studying oboe, pi...
Takaki Maeda and his team were celebrating the 40th anniversary of Casio's Musical Instruments division while attending the NAMM Show in 2020. This special occasion was the perfect opport...
Yuji Tanaka is a Senior Executive Officer for Roland Corporation who has enjoyed a successful career in the music products industry. Yuji provided detail about how and why he came to work...
Ricky Peterson is a lifelong Minnesotan musician whose family is deeply rooted in a characteristically “Minneapolis” sound. Ricky is best known for his 20 year association with saxophone ...
Craig Doerge played keyboards in the famous group of Los Angeles based studio musicians known as The Section. The Section, which also included Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel and Danny Kortchma...
Jason Stanfield has always enjoyed finding new and funny sounds, which means he really enjoyed the synthesizer developments of the 1990s! He worked for Mississippi Music in Hattiesburg, M...
Joey Welz was a member of Bill Haley’s Comets as well as Link Wray’s Wray Men. He played piano in the early days of Rockabilly for Bat Records with his own group as well as with The Jay R...
Chris Scialfa developed his great love and passion for music at a very young age. By the time he was five years old Chris was taking classical piano lessons, which thanks to his understan...
Adriana Balic is a vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist, songwriter, producer, bandleader, and educator, covering styles from classical to pop/rock and jazz. From 2003 she served as keyboardi...
Axel Hartmann was given a piano by his grandfather, which changed his life. He soon developed a true passion for music. The first organ he played was a Farfisa and by 13 years old he was ...
Howard Reitzes was brought up on classical piano but found a true passion for playing when he discovered the Blues. After trying his hand at the guitar, Howard fell in love with keyboards...
