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Tell us the story of how you first learned about and then first played a Keilwerth saxophone.
For me I was in high school. It was my sophomore year, so fall of 1995. I was living in Stillwater, Oklahoma and playing in the high school band. My only instrument at the time was my Yamaha YAS-23 alto, and I had just started to double on tenor and was playing a school owned King Super 20 (non silver sonic).
I had seen the cool looking black saxophone probably first by seeing Branford Marsalis on The Tonight Show a couple of years earlier, but didn't know much about saxophones at that time and didn't yet know the name Keilwerth.
When we went on our all-state audition trip in December of 1995, as a school, those of us who made it to the final round of auditions, we would go out to eat the night before the auditions and then hang out at a local mall in Oklahoma City. While perusing a music store at the mall, I happened across a CD of a saxophone player named Ron Holloway. Yeah, it was this one:
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I had seen Branford play that same saxophone on The Tonight Show. And then later I had seen them advertised in the big Woodwind and Brasswind catalogs, right next to the Guardalas that looked similar. And I knew Ron Holloway's name and sound because I had Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia album from 1991 which featured Ron Holloway. And there it was right in the liner notes: "Ron plays the Keilwerth SX90R tenor saxophone". That CD went home with me, and I fell in love with Ron's playing and the sound of the Keilwerth and Lawton combination. And from there the quest to play one of these fabled saxophones started.
My band director was a saxophone player and played a Selmer Mark VI alto. I asked him if he knew anything about Keilwerth Saxophones. He said, "Oh yeah, that's what Branford Marsalis plays on The Tonight Show. Not bad saxophones, but you should really try to find a used Mark VI, blah, blah, blah..." I had already played his Mark VI a number of times, as well as the Mark VI of my saxophone teacher in 10th grade. I wasn't impressed and tuned out everything he said after that.
This was well before we had the internet in my house. Somehow I managed to find out that there were two music shops in Oklahoma City that had both Keilwerth and Guardala saxophones in stock. One of which was Larsen Music which was about 90 minutes away from us. I coerced one of my parents, probably my mom, to take me to Larsen Music so I could paly the saxophones there. I took my Selmer C* and Meyer 6M and I played my first black nickel SX-90R alto saxophone. I was in love. The feel and and the sound were something from my dreams. I also played the black Guardala. The salesman asked me if I wanted to try one of the Selmers and I just said no, I'm pretty much only interested in the Keilwerths. Sadly, the price was way out of range for my family at the time. So I spent the rest of my high school career playing my Yamaha 23 and my first year of college as a performance major. It would be more than three more years before I finally purchased my first Keilwerth alto. But that's another story.
For me I was in high school. It was my sophomore year, so fall of 1995. I was living in Stillwater, Oklahoma and playing in the high school band. My only instrument at the time was my Yamaha YAS-23 alto, and I had just started to double on tenor and was playing a school owned King Super 20 (non silver sonic).
I had seen the cool looking black saxophone probably first by seeing Branford Marsalis on The Tonight Show a couple of years earlier, but didn't know much about saxophones at that time and didn't yet know the name Keilwerth.
When we went on our all-state audition trip in December of 1995, as a school, those of us who made it to the final round of auditions, we would go out to eat the night before the auditions and then hang out at a local mall in Oklahoma City. While perusing a music store at the mall, I happened across a CD of a saxophone player named Ron Holloway. Yeah, it was this one:
I had seen Branford play that same saxophone on The Tonight Show. And then later I had seen them advertised in the big Woodwind and Brasswind catalogs, right next to the Guardalas that looked similar. And I knew Ron Holloway's name and sound because I had Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia album from 1991 which featured Ron Holloway. And there it was right in the liner notes: "Ron plays the Keilwerth SX90R tenor saxophone". That CD went home with me, and I fell in love with Ron's playing and the sound of the Keilwerth and Lawton combination. And from there the quest to play one of these fabled saxophones started.
My band director was a saxophone player and played a Selmer Mark VI alto. I asked him if he knew anything about Keilwerth Saxophones. He said, "Oh yeah, that's what Branford Marsalis plays on The Tonight Show. Not bad saxophones, but you should really try to find a used Mark VI, blah, blah, blah..." I had already played his Mark VI a number of times, as well as the Mark VI of my saxophone teacher in 10th grade. I wasn't impressed and tuned out everything he said after that.
This was well before we had the internet in my house. Somehow I managed to find out that there were two music shops in Oklahoma City that had both Keilwerth and Guardala saxophones in stock. One of which was Larsen Music which was about 90 minutes away from us. I coerced one of my parents, probably my mom, to take me to Larsen Music so I could paly the saxophones there. I took my Selmer C* and Meyer 6M and I played my first black nickel SX-90R alto saxophone. I was in love. The feel and and the sound were something from my dreams. I also played the black Guardala. The salesman asked me if I wanted to try one of the Selmers and I just said no, I'm pretty much only interested in the Keilwerths. Sadly, the price was way out of range for my family at the time. So I spent the rest of my high school career playing my Yamaha 23 and my first year of college as a performance major. It would be more than three more years before I finally purchased my first Keilwerth alto. But that's another story.
