Send It Forward

It was a Tuesday morning. September 23, 2014. I was alone, setting up tables for the lunch service at Dave’s Place, doing the usual prep, when someone knocked on the front door of the restaurant.

The man standing there was holding an old case. He asked if I played the saxophone. I told him yes and invited him in. When he opened the case, I found myself looking at a 1937 Selmer Balanced Action alto that looked almost brand new. He wasn't a musician, he said. It had been his father's, who passed away, and the horn had been collecting dust in a closet. This horn was over 75 years old, and he just wanted to hear it played one more time.

I grabbed a mouthpiece and a reed from my own case. I kept all my horns at the restaurant in those days. When I played a few notes through it, it sounded amazing.

I could tell he felt something when he heard it. When I finished, I thanked him for letting me play such a beautiful instrument. He smiled and thanked me. Then he told me the horn was mine.

I told him there was no way I could afford it. A 1937 Selmer Balanced Action is a serious piece of history. A vintage horn that players hunt for their whole careers. He told me it wasn't about money. There were only two caveats: play it at his father's gravesite, and when my time with it is done, don't sell it. Just pass it on to somebody else who needs it.

I stood at the man's father's grave and played his favorite song, "Blue Skies."

I don't know exactly what I expected to feel in that moment, but I know what I did feel. The weight of something I hadn't earned but had been trusted with anyway. A stranger's grief, a father's voice, a promise made over an open case in a restaurant that doesn't exist anymore.

That saxophone now lives carefully with my brother-in-law, Brandon, who needed an alto to play. I already had an alto I play on gigs, one that belonged to my band director, Rex Perry, who poured his whole life into music and whose story deserves its own telling. The Balanced Action is different. It came with terms attached. Terms that say everything about how that man's father understood what music is for.

I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about this art form. We play music in the moment. Once it leaves our instrument, it’s out there. Where it goes and what it changes depends on who is listening. In many ways, Dave’s Place is the same. The restaurant may not be in operation anymore, but it lives on through everyone who experienced it. 

It moves through you. And when the time comes, you send it forward.