PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Got any old gig photos? (not publicity shots)

I want to share the story of that sax. The one in the old picture was a Buescher. It was like one rung above a student rental, and in fact it may have been a retired student rental knowing where I got it. The one in 2015 though....

I was looking around Craigslist for a specific horn and saw that horn listed by a guy in New York. It was a listed as a "King". I asked him for the serial number. When I got it I called the company that King became and asked them if they could run the serial and pin down the manufacture date, they said they could get it down to 1st or 2nd half of a year. They ran the number and it was built in the 1st half of 1964. I will digress and come back to this point.

I emailed the guy in New York and worked out a price. With shipping, it came to me for less than $100!!When it arrived I blew air through it and one key leaked. I took it to my shop and the horn guy there looked at it and said he'd call me. 3 days later he called and said "All that was wrong was one key up top was bent. It doesn't even need pads or cork." The bill was $27. That guy's name is Tom Ianni. I have known him since we were little kids.

So, both Tom's father and my father, both long since deceased, worked at King back before it became King. It was originally called H. (Henderson) N. White. The plant was in Cleveland, on E 52nd St. I grew up on E 61st St. That horn, as I could date it, would have been worked on by both my dad and Tom's dad.

Back to the phone call. When they told me "1st half of 1964" I said "Great. That means my father would have worked on this horn." They asked who he was and when I told them, the woman on the phone said "Oh my god." and told the other woman in the office that she had the son of my dad (Names redacted) on the phone. And they both got on the call and went on and on telling me how nice my dad was and he was always greeting them when they walked through the plant. And I laughed as I said "Well, you didn't live with him. He could be stern."

So, morale of the story is that I played those last few years of reunion shows with an H.N. White horn that was worked on during assembly by my father, and it is maintained by another H.N. White worker's father. And I got to buy that legacy and memory horn for about $125!!!

When Henderson White died, he had a brother who thought he would walk in and take over the business. Henderson's wife, Edna, said nay nay. She read the will and found that SHE was the sole heir to the business. She quickly lawyered up and on some random day, her lawyer and police came in and escorted Henderson's brother out of the place. The court later assigned a payout value to that silent partner that was the brother, and he just rode off into the sunset for what I later learned was a meager inheritance. He was a very minor partner and Edna took over. Bless her heart for not being pushed around!