The Professor Gadget Sax Quartet is a labor of luv for me. But we really don’t practice enough. Work, family, and other band commitments are constantly getting in the way. That said, this is our Labor Day performance at the wonderful Ballard Locks Summer Concerts hosted by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

We do have fun and I like to think that we are better musicians for the work we do in the sax quartet. Every part is exposed, every instrument heard, and there is no place to hide. If I was a perfectionist I wouldn’t ever show these videos around. But at each performance I get approached by people who played in high school, are thinking about returning to music and were very impressed.

Some of the people who talk to me are musicians in other bands. Last night a fellow wanted to know what our setups were because he said our intonation was very good. He also wanted to know if we were using stiff reeds to make the higher notes easier to play in tune. I told him there wasn’t a jazz mouthpiece in the bunch; we were using #5 or so openings and Meyer and such mouthpieces.

I’m off to my Monday sax lessons with the professor, Ray Guyll. He has reviewed what I’ve posted and will work with me to improve my performance. My goal is to play as well as each of these fine ladies did in the concert. They are very solid musicians.