When I was twelve, my cousin “Little” Freddy Koop gave me his Martin Tenor Saxophone. I became immediately taken with this new instrument.  I had been fooling around with an old alto for about a year and had been playing piano in some fashion or other since I was five, but this Tenor Saxophone offered new possibilities.

Even though the advice from a high level New York City MD was for me to avoid playing a wind instrument because of my Asthmatic condition as a child, I chose (and Mom agreed) that the advice from her brother, my Uncle Fred, the Chiropractor, was a better option.  He felt that the playing of the saxophone would exercise my lungs - making them stronger and a way to counteract any asthma I might be experiencing.

I studied the instrument briefly in Junior High with a wonderful teacher and good swinging Tenor player himself, Ernie Labovich.  I continued on my own after about two years of study.  It was during these High School years that I divided my time between making a serious attempt at becoming a respectable jazz saxophonist and by my continuous playing of the piano.

I had always written songs.  My first being for my 5th grade fellow student Toby at P.S. 131 in Jamaica, Queens.  I was asked by the Principal to perform the song on stage for an assembly program. So Bruce Malin, who sang, and I who played my mandolin, performed “Toby” while my good friend, later to become great composer, and humanitarian Michael Kamen, sat in the audience.

Jumping ahead about forty years and I get a new toy to play with.  This time it’s a Mac equipped with enough hardware and software to enable me to compose and record the tracks for the songs you hear on “Hecknology”.  Add the two toys together - the saxophone and the technology and me doing both and you have“Hecknology”.

Most of the tunes on this CD have lyrics but I believe the instrumental presentations does the trick just fine.  This was also conceived as an educational tool by which I provide the tracks, the music, and the theory behind the music to help students in their understanding of jazz and jazz improvisation.