Biography and music

Well, where does one begin. I'll kick off from when I lived in Salus street, Burnley, Lancashire, and 9years old, opposite the big chimney of Victoria hospitals boiler house. The gentleman next door played alto sax in the dance band at the Romany ballroom in Nelson, and consequently I guess I must have got the sax bug from him. Anyhow I failed my eleven plus and landed at Barden school for boys and had a great couple of years in the band there, where I played my first sax solo "Old man river". From there I passed my thirteen plus and moved on to Townley technical high school. A brilliant site for more school info is Friends Reunited At sixteen years of age, long hair, Rolling Stones, Beatles etc were at Nelson Imp, and my group days commenced.

Bands played in
* Outer Limits * Swinging Hangmen * Kudos * Blues Unlimited * District Blues Company * Cat road show (London) *Rain & Tears * Pied Pipers(Germany) *
On returning from Germany, I did a short spell backing the Hollies on tenor sax, with Jimmy Jewel from Brierfield on alto, where r u now Jimmy?
* Ricky Allen Set/Cats Whiskers Burnley/Tiffanys Wigan/Grafton Rooms Liverpool * Dream Machine/Tiffannys Bradford *
Now it was 1978 & time to go solo, so Stevie Gold was born. From then on it was the club & cabaret scene for a good few years which was to lead to my eventual move up here to the North East, all down to a female, of course.



If anyone out there remembers any of the bands please let us know!

Saxophone Tuition not now available, Please see below.

Lessons are half hour or hourly sessions
Recommended Tutor books:  Well there are so many tutor books around these days, some full of bluesy jazz riffs or whatever, John O'niell has one for alto and tenor with some really nice duets for the teacher and pupil to play, and there's a complte guide from Peter Gelling from http://www.learntoplaymusic.com/ but for the complete beginner who cannot read a note of music i don't think you can beat--------
-----ABRACADABRA, as it is so easy to understand, and gives you the basics which you cannot do without, whatever style you wish to progress to.

Also "Otto Langey", quite hard going but for technique & site reading, an excellent choice. This is the book i was brought up on, giving my age away now!

as used by Dave Clarke
I also use"Saxmania blues greats/Jazz Hits," & a book called "Session time"(solos that expand into ensembles), published by Boosey & Hawkes. My approach to teaching is to encourage enthusiasm. If the student is to become bored easily, he or she is never going to learn very much. but if one is taught the basics, plus tunes that mean something to them, they will enjoy practicing. Theory is taught alongside technique , and improvisation, plus I advocate regular lessons, promoting good routine , thus promoting progress . If you're into improvising around some great standards, get the book & cd from "Jamie Aebersold". It carries the scores for all instruments, piano, alto, Tenor, & bass, & the backing tracks on the cd are ace.

Top Tip

Practicing at home

Ten minutes every day is better than one long lesson per week. It allows the pupil to get more quickly aquainted with their instrument.
The "Selmer Mk6" tenor is my favourite instrument of all, & I've owned one since 1972. My alto which I mainly use for teaching is a very old "Hawkes", from long before Boosey & Hawkes was formed.
The mouthpiece I use on my tenor is a metal Berg-Larson, metal because the sound tends to carry further when playing large auditoriums, & I've always used a 2 1/2 reed.

UPDATE: whilst this still provides good advice, i'm now fully retired & am consequently no longer providing tuition.