Nobody played instruments in my family. My father got that bug and said he wants his son to play saxophone.
Carlos Sosa, the saxophone player for Zac Brown Band, and I worked up two songs for 'When You're Feeling Sick.' They were a blast to work on. The songs are real upbeat and silly.
Our band was different. We were still playing rock 'n' roll, but we had an entirely different sound: just one guitar, but an organ and a saxophone.
And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I'm going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I'm going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.
I used to play too with a boy who played a saxophone. We didn't play no blues, we'd play a lot of love songs - 'Stardust', 'Blue Moon', 'Out Cold Again', 'Sophisticated Lady', 'Stars Fell On Alabama', a lot of different stuff.
I played saxophone for 15 years. I played out. It never reached any kind of a level that was recording or anything.
Cello is my first instrument, then piano, drums, bass, violin, recorder, saxophone, but I'd never play them live!
I skipped school one day to see Dizzy Gillespie, and that's where I met Coltrane. Coltrane and Jimmy Heath just joined the band, and I brought my trumpet, and he was sitting at the piano downstairs waiting to join Dizzy's band. He had his saxophone across his lap, and he looked at me and he said, 'You want to play?'
I worked with a guy, I can't think of his name, him and his wife, and one of them had a saxophone and the other played drums. It wasn't a regular job but I did a few gigs around home with them.
The only memory I have of playing the saxophone was in a school play. We put on 'Grease,' which is still one of my favorite movies. I played Danny, and I slid out on my knees and played a really out-of-tune 'Blue Moon.'
