I was playing a Buescher horn that was about student level for a long time. I only played our old band's reunion shows so I only saw the horn section guys once a year. The story of when I bought that King horn includes me taking it to a store here (Academy Music) that happened to be owned by a guy whose father worked with my father, so we had known each other from company picnics since I was 8 and he was 6. He had a photo above the cash register that was taken from one end of the assembly line aimed down the line and his dad was the second man in, mine was 4th. So I took that horn in when it arrived from New York (and I STOLE it from the guy) and said "Tom, look at this." He took it out and just smiled and said "Wow. Where did you find this?" So I told him the story. He looked at the serial number and from experience knew when it was made. I told him "Do whatever you have to do to make it play." and I left. He called me the next day and said "It needed one pad and one key was out of adjustment. Your tab is 23 bucks."

The next weekend was the first horn section rehearsal. We usually ran the originals first because we have been playing them for decades and just needed to polish them before we moved on to the year's new material. When we finished the first song the tenor player (WAY better than me and WAY better ear) looked at me and said "You got a new horn, eh? It sounds" WAY better than the old one." He then handed me a tenor reed (I play alto) and suggested I try using a tenor reed so there was more wood vibrating, and wow did it sound bigger. I now play a Vandoren 5 with a star mouthpiece with tenor reeds and that 1964 horn sounds fantastic, minus the skill factor of the player... I don't play enough to be any good these days.

But even though my father and I were never really friends, I am happy to have that horn that he had a hand in building. When Tommy told me one key was bent I laughed inside thinking "He has been gone all these years and still found a way to try and sabotage me by bending that key on the horn he built in 1964."

Our relationship is a very sad and maddening story.