Anyone who is semi-serious about playing a musical instrument needs to have a skilled professional in their network to tweak, repair and improve their equipment. I know a very good brass repair guy in the Chicago area (Dana Hofer); he helped me reincarnate my tenor and bass trombones earlier this year. I also know several harmonica technicians that do the painstaking work of fixing up my beat-up chromatic harmonicas. For saxophones and other woodwind instruments, the top dude around is Paul Maslin of PM Woodwind in Evanston IL. Tucked away on a side street just west of the commuter rail tracks, PM Woodwind is perhaps the world's best source of saxophone repair services and deep woodwind knowledge. Paul collects and re-sells rare instruments, too. Great players from all over the U.S. and beyond seek out help from PM Woodwind. Not surprisingly. Paul Maslin is a killer saxophonist and all of his repair folks also play. To truly understand and customize an instrument, you must know how to play it.
PM Woodwind has a side room at their store front, a small space used for lessons and rehearsals of local groups. Paul's stature among sax players is substantial, and several major names have stopped by to conduct free master classes/performances in that space. I suspect they do this to stay in the good graces of this sax repair guru. Tower of Power's horn section played there and so has Ravi Coltrane (John Coltrane's offspring) and Dave Liebman. These events generally attract other sax players; I managed to sneak into one earlier this month because my partner is an awesome flutist who knows Paul well. The featured artist was Joey DeFrancesco aka Joey D.
If you know nothing about Joey D, I feel a little sorry for you. He has been called a modern Mozart, started playing the organ at 4 years old and had his own band by the time he was 10. Columbia Records signed him when he was 16 years old. Miles Davis hired Joey D when he was 17 to play in one of the last Miles Davis groups. Joey D is a giant that rejuvenated the Hammond B3 organ jazz idiom. Since he is such an insatiable, questing musical force, he has picked up other instruments - trumpet and, more recently, saxophone. Oh, and Joey sings, too. Mr. DeFrancesco has had prodigious output - 39 records as a leader and work with a broad range of musicians, from Elvin Jones and James Moody to Ray Charles and Van Morrison.
He came to PM Woodwind to play sax; no organ on the premises (and no trumpet, either). Joey D's interest in the sax is partly genetic - his grandfather played the instrument. Joey D fooled around with the horn in the 1990's with limited success. He set it down for 25 years. In 2019, he recorded some tunes with the great tenor sax man, Pharaoh Saunders, and said "I gotta play sax now." The man has an insane work ethic and started shedding like a madman. By the time he got to the PM Woodwind side room on June 11, he could go toe-to-toe with almost any jazz tenor sax player around. It was a stunning display by a guy that has only been playing sax seriously for 3 years.
PM Woodwind can only hold a small audience, but very knowledgeable and enthusiastic folks were in attendance. Since it was a master class, Joey D took questions. One of the more remarkable things he said - he doesn't read music very well and mostly plays by ear/by memory. He also said that the trumpet is the "least forgiving instrument" that he plays. The brass player's embouchure requires constant work to stay functional - a week off and the muscles begin to atrophy. Since I play trombone, I know what he said is true. He also told us that his wife is his business manager, and that he couldn't be very successful without her guidance and expertise.
It was a very intense 90 minutes, and then Joey D split for his gig at the Jazz Showcase in downtown Chicago. This guy has been playing professionally for 41 years and he is only 51. He is still in the 4th or 5th inning of his game. It's hard for me to wrap my head around that factoid.
So if you didn't know Joey D, now you know.
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