Thank you for taking the time to check it out and the kind words y’all. And yes, I do fully intend on continuing to work on it. I actually enjoy practicing now, and I think getting a tenor that isn’t holding me back has been a big part of that.

As far as Aubra Graves goes. As a commercial photographer that also gets paid to run video cameras – I’m actually going to try to see if I can drive over to Waco, TX (where Mr. Graves is from) and do recorded interview / documentry about him. I figure it’d worth it and a gift to the saxophone community because he’s so freakin’ good – yet hardly known it seems.

Here’s fun / interesting story about him. After I discovered him on YouTube I mentioned nothing of him to my teacher, Mace, because for some reason I was worried that he’d tell me he wasn’t really all that great – when I just thought his sound and playing was amazing. Well, finally I broke down and texted one of his video’s to Mace – the one of Mr. Graves playing “It Never Entered My Mind,” which I *LOVE* and told Mace that maybe I’d be able to play that well by the time I was Mr. Graves age.

Mace texted back pretty quickly and said something like, “You nor I will ever be able to play as well as him.” This shocked me because Mace is one badass sax player. Mace went on to tell me via text that it was funny I had sent him one of Aubra Graves video’s – because it was Aubra Graves that inspired him to play sax.

Mace grew up in Waco, TX too due to his dad being music professor there. I think his dad is a jazz trumpet player, so Mace told me that as a kid – as far back as he can remember – Mr. Graves would be out playing at various music events in town that his dad had exposed him too. According to Mace, Mr. Graves use to play alto a lot more, whereas now it seems that most everything on his channel is him playing tenor – which is fine by me since tenor is my favorite of the saxes.

Anyway, I thought it was very cool that I randomly found Mr. Graves on YouTube – and was kind of worried about sharing his stuff with Mace – who’s playing I also very much admire – and it turns out he’s Mace’s biggest influence.

But yeah, Mr. Graves is a very interesting guy to me, even though I know very little about him. All I really know is that he’s a retired mailman, and I *think* Mace said he’s a WWII vet too.

So, if he’s willing to do a video interview with me, I will definitely share it here on this forum when I’ve fininshed. I have all the video and audio gear to record it with. I’ve just got to find the time to do it – and try to get connected with him or his son – who I understand is who records and post all of his stuff online.

If you all are curious to hear Mace playing sax rather than piano like he’s doing in my video – check out this link.The audio isn’t great, but his playing makes up for that. It’s one of my favorites of him playing on YouTube. He has a very Lenny Pickett type sound going in it to me:

Thanks again for the kind words and taking the time to check out the video I did for my wife. It truly was a labor of love.

Keith