When people ask me how i (really) learned how to play the saxophone i try to sum it up with this: I attended elder statesman saxophonist  Fred Anderson's University of the Velvet Lounge on Sunday nights and audited his colleague Von Freeman's New Apartment Lounge seminar on Tuesday nights....

When I first got to new york some 7 plus years ago i was living in a seriously broke down,  crammed, totally illegal apartment with 4 other  crazy people in queens near the airport( read: unheard of cheeeeeap...tho it took so long to get out there I might as well of lived in jersey..... fiddled around with doing music journalism, partly because i was already doing a 'zine...thought it would be a fun extension.....not realizing that the lives of the journalist and musician are intertwined in the same busted lifestyle  ghetto-- managed to publish a few interviews of musicians i admired for the publication All About Jazz--those musicians being pianist  Hank Jones and pianist Ran Blake..... the last one i did, but didn't publish, before i threw in the towel on leaving journalism to the real journalists was with Vonski...

 

he and Fred have  been holding down the hometown front like  serioulsy dedicated soldiers. I will always be extremely greatful to both.

Check out the interview.

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