When I was 2 or 3 years old, my grandparents gave me some money for my birthday. My parents took me to a toy store and, they tell me, I disappeared. Ten minutes later I was back with a plastic toy saxophone.
My mom started giving me piano lessons when I was 5 and, eventually, I transitioned to a professional teacher. Then, in fifth grade, I picked up the saxophone. My dad had played briefly when he was a kid and I started on his alto.
I absolutely fell in love with the saxophone. (I still love it, to be honest.) In middle school, I joined the 0 period jazz band, directed by Glenn Miller superfan (and eventual convert to the church) Karl Fitch. (Thanks, Mr. Fitch!) At a jazz band concert I heard a classmate a year ahead of me play a solo on tenor and I became a tenor sax player.
I kept up playing in band and jazz band in high school. And one summer, my parents drove me from the suburbs of San Diego to Provo for a week-long music camp at BYU.
At that music camp, I met Dr. Ray Smith, who led BYU’s saxophone and jazz programs.
Now, it’s been decades so I don’t have a clear memory of what the camp entailed. I do, however, remember master classes in Dr. Smith’s office as he talked to us about saxophone and jazz. The one very clear memory I have of that week is his mentioning that we needed to listen to John Coltrane. (My family was very supportive of my saxophone dreams but also, they didn’t listen to jazz and I hadn’t ever heard of Coltrane.) I remember repeating “Coltrane” (probably “Coal Train” in my head at the time) over and over as I left his office, determined to remember and begin listening to him.
That experience meeting Dr. Smith and learning from his was hugely influential in my decision to go to BYU. I realize that the path between saxophone performance major and tax attorney and professor is not a straight one, but Ray Smith was an important part of that path. And at BYU, he was a role model both of a musician and of a faithful member of the church.
I don’t want to overstate his influence, but I also don’t want to understate it. My freshman year, once a week I attended a saxophone master class with Dr. Smith and the 8 or 9 other saxophone majors. I never played in Synthesis, the top jazz band at BYU that he directed, and I had private lessons with someone else, but I interacted with Dr. Smith on a regular basis.
So why this ode to Ray Smith? Because a week from today he’ll be conducting Synthesis for the last time at BYU. After 40 years(!) teaching at BYU, Ray Smith is retiring at the end of this year.
The last time I say Dr. Smith was approaching 20 years ago. I was either a law student or young attorney in Manhattan and he and Synthesis were there for a festival. But though my interactions with him lasted not much more than a year, and in spite of the decades separating those interactions, it’s important to me to commemorate the influence he has had on me.
Photo by Darrell Fraser on Unsplash