Big Bands
Kevin Maher has countless stories about the music industry, about jazz and about his father and grandfather who ran Down Beat Magazine and the early days at Music Inc. Even more, Kevin can outline the trends and the great innovations that have changed our industry over the years because his...
Skip Buss played trumpet for several big bands on the road and in local hotel ballrooms during the great Swing Era of the 1940s. He decided to leave the road when his son was born at which time he gigged at local clubs and ballrooms at night and worked for a small music retailer by day. He joined...
Brent Fischer has provided several presentations at the Hot Zone during the NAMM Show, providing his insight regarding the music industry. His career started as a young child listening to his father, Clare Fischer, compose. Over the years they worked together and when his father’s health began to...
Fred Davis began playing saxophone as a boy and started his own band, the Freddy Davis Orchestra, which played around Ohio during World War II. He was well equipped with reeds for his gigs as his mother owned a small music store in Marysville, where Fred grew up. After working in his mother's store...
Sam Ulano was the drum teacher, performer, method book author and drum shop owner whose name became synonymous with the world of drumming. During his long and celebrated career, Sam played with some of the legends of jazz and popular music. In 1948 he published the first of nearly one thousand...
Bucky Pizzarelli was a jazz guitarist who helped bring the sounds of the electric guitar into jazz and into popular music, beginning in the 1940s. As a stage performer and later a studio musician, Bucky's guitar can be heard on countless recordings both by other artists as well as on his own. He...
Charles Traeger had an impressive reputation in the world of bass making and bass restoration. His long career began when he was a musician in the big band era looking for someone who could help with his own instrument. He learned all he could and noticed there was a real need for literature for...
Allan Clark began taking training classes as a volunteer docent right when the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music was opened to the public in 2000. Since that time Allan has provided countless tours of the museum as well as volunteered at many museum events such as the annual fund raisers. ...
Peter De Luke Sr. taught music in the public school system in New York for over 25 years. His zest for encouraging young students to make music has been a strong focus of Pete’s even after his formal teaching days were over. In addition to his teaching career was a very impressive performance and...
Jack Shallat was a professional violin player who landed several gigs with traveling bands in the 1930s and 40s. During that time he met Buddy Rogers and both men opened separate music stores in and around Cincinnati in the early 1950s. In 1967 they decided to merge their businesses and work...