When I was growing my parents forced me to play the saxophone. I grew up in a musical family, and it was more or less expected of me to learn at least one instrument. Although I loved the comradery of being in band and hanging out with my friends, I really never progressed on saxophone all that much.

It was a really difficult instrument to learn and my interest was more in learning guitar so I could play rock music. Nevertheless, being a sax player in my youth gave me quite a few awesome experiences. When I was 11 I got to meet Boots Randolph (who is hailed as the all time greatest by most sax players.)

That was pretty cool. I also got to do a lot of traveling for various band related events and performances. One sax player that I was turned onto growing up was Dave Koz. This guy is insane. He can do things on the sax that I couldn’t even dream of. He’s more or less the Eddie Van Halen of saxophone.

Even though I didn’t exactly enjoy playing that particular instrument myself, I always loved listening to him play it. It was so soothing and impressive. If you get the chance, you should definitely check out his concert at the State Theatre in Minneapolis on June 24th. The performance starts at 7:30 pm and you can get a ticket online now for $74.

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