While in grade school, I became fascinated with music while visiting my cousin Paul Schocker, a concert pianist, flutist, composer and music teacher living in Easton, PA. Paul’s younger sisters, cousins Eke and Jeanette, were also pianists. Cousin Paul had me sit at his grand piano as he wrote some letters on a piece of paper and showed me how they corresponded to the black and white keys of the piano. He then took the index finger of my right hand and, while playing omp-pa-pa harmonies with his left, glided my finger up and down the white keys creating a crude version of a piece attributed to Mozart: the Bread and Butter Waltz. In a very short time, I had memorized the piece and have remembered it ever since.
As my interest in music grew, I knew that my parents couldn’t afford a piano and, even if they could have, there was no room for one in our small apartment located above the family store at 6146 Torresdale Avenue, Philadelphia, PA. At my urging, they did manage, in time, the purchase of an alto saxophone .
My interest in the sax was stimulated by two elementary school friends who also played the instrument: David Van Horn and Louis Zelazny. At the age of 8, I began taking private lessons with Abe Belov at the Wurlitzer Store in downtown Philadelphia, a forty-five minute trolley and elevated/subway train ride from home. In time, David, Louis and I formed a trio and played for grade and then junior high school events. While in junior HS, a fellow band member told me that anyone who plays the saxophone first can never become a good clarinetist. That was all I needed to embark on an endeavor to prove my classmate wrong.