Rising Stars: Meet Alexander Cazet

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexander Cazet.

Hi Alexander, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
When I was nine years old, the school I attended in the eastern hills of the Napa Valley needed storage for their band instruments one summer. My dad, who was on the school board, volunteered our basement. I remember going down there and seeing stacks and stacks of instrument cases of varying shapes and sizes.

I was curious about the instruments so I would pick ones to take upstairs and attempt to assemble them and play them. The one that perplexed me the most was the saxophone. When I finally figured out how to put it together, I played my first notes, and even though I’m sure they did not sound beautiful in the room, I was overcome with this feeling of joy and wonder. I was hooked. In 5th grade, I moved to a school in nearby St. Helena and joined the band as an alto saxophone player. I vividly remember one day as the class was packing up, my teacher, Jim Cameron, made a comment to me about my sound. I recall him saying, “How come you have such a nice tone on that thing?” I said, “I don’t know.” I was glowing for the rest of the day. This affirmation ingrained a feeling inside me that said, “this is something you’re good at. This is something that you can do!”

I attended St. Helena schools through high school. St. Helena High had a student body of about 500 students and a small band program that could not support a marching band. We had two classes: Concert Band and Jazz Band. Instrumental music seemed to be a bit of an afterthought for the district, but Mr. Cameron, the Band Director, was a true musician at heart and passionate about jazz. He encouraged me to join the Jazz Band and taught me how to improvise. I had never taken any lessons and knew nothing about harmony or music theory, but I loved expressing myself through the instrument, and Mr. Cameron was very encouraging of it.

In high school, I grew frustrated with how I was playing. I had taken piano lessons when I was younger but had become discouraged by piano and discontinued lessons. I would listen to records of pro musicians, and I could tell that they knew something I didn’t. I remember asking Mr. Cameron, “Is there more to learn?” I wanted to know how to sound like the musicians on the records. He laughed at me. Of course, there was!

Finally, I asked my parents if I could take private saxophone lessons. My mom would drive me to Santa Rosa once a week after school, an hour drives each way. Beginning the year I turned sixteen, my parents drove me to Stanford University in Palo Alto every summer to attend the Stanford Jazz Workshop- a two-week long summer camp where I was able to study with some living legends of music: the Heath Brothers, Joshua Redman, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Eric Alexander, to name a few. Many of the other kids at camp were incredible musicians, some were child prodigies. I am grateful for the experience because it taught me that even though I may have been a stand-out player for my small town, I had a lot of work to do. I realized that being great at my instrument and learning as much as I could was very important to me.

Eventually, Mr. Cameron left his position at St. Helena, and he was replaced by somebody truly underqualified for the job. The band program really suffered. I think there were six students in band by the time I quit senior year. I really loved music, but I felt that band was hurting me more than it was helping. I continued to take lessons privately with Alastair Ingram, my teacher in Santa Rosa and looked for other extracurricular ways to keep playing music with other musicians. I joined the Community Jazz Band that rehearsed weekly at Pacific Union College. The bassist, pianist, and drummer, all college students, formed a small combo, and I joined them on sax. All of a sudden, we were a jazz quartet that performed every Wednesday at the small coffee house on the college campus. I am very grateful to Darren, the pianist, James, the bassist, and Zach, the drummer, for taking on the role of musical mentors and collaborators. It felt great to be able to play in an ensemble that challenged me beyond my earlier experiences. We recorded an album for my senior project.

I decided to make music a serious commitment and set my sights on pursuing a music degree in college. I visited a number of schools across the country, ranging from conservatories to universities. I didn’t feel like anywhere was a good fit until I auditioned at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I fell in love with the natural beauty of Colorado, and when I met Professor Tom Myer, the head of the classical saxophone department, I felt like he was a genuine, down-to-earth person who was immensely knowledgeable in the art of playing saxophone.

CU Boulder’s College of Music is a conservatory-style program. My days were spent studying Western music theory and history, ear training, music technology and recording techniques, composition, and more. I studied privately with professor Tom Myer every week. I had some very eye-opening and inspiring lessons and classes with professors John Gunther and Brad Goode. I learned the history of the saxophone and studied the repertoire that’s important to the instrument. I studied other woodwinds, including flute and clarinet, and played in ensembles such as Jazz Band, Concert Band, Symphonic Band, jazz combos, and a classical saxophone quartet. I even played in BLORK, the “Boulder Laptop Orchestra”. On top of everything, there was lots of practicing to do. There were juries and recitals to prepare for. I often had to wake up early and head to the practice rooms before class to get my practice in for the day. Sometimes I didn’t leave the practice rooms until midnight or later.

When I was a freshman, I met my neighbor in the dorms, bassist Zac Flynn, who became my first Colorado friend. That year he joined a band outside of school called the “By All Means Band,” led by Ghanean drummer and songwriter Paa Kow. Zac convinced me to come play with them. We played traditional West African Highlife music and jazz fusion. At age 19, I was playing gigs in Boulder and eventually all over Colorado with the band, often in bars where I wasn’t even legally allowed to drink. I was one of the few students in the classical saxophone department who was getting a degree in classical saxophone and playing gigs at night. The African rhythms and melodies I was steeped in are still a huge influence on my playing and my musical sensibilities.

Ten years ago, I graduated from the University of Colorado with a bachelor’s degree in Saxophone Performance with an emphasis in Jazz Studies. I decided to pursue music as a professional in the world. I became a permanent resident of Colorado, playing in bands and working day jobs on the side. I have toured with Selasee, another artist from West Africa, from 2013 through today. I’ve played with dozens of bands in Colorado, working hard and cultivating professional relationships for about a decade, but it’s been only the last five years when my career really began to take shape.

I’m finally in a place where music is my primary source of income. I play in wedding bands and in jazz combos at corporate events. I’ve played at festivals such as the Northwest String Summit in Oregon and Summercamp in Illinois. I’ve traveled coast to coast playing music. I hope that music eventually takes me around the world.

In 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdowns, my band Mama Magnolia raised almost 60 thousand dollars to record a full-length album, which will be released this winter. We spent ten days in the studio in 2021 recording the album with producer Robert Ellis and engineer Josh Block. We have been fortunate enough to play on stage at Denver’s Mission Ballroom. We opened for the Grammy award-winning band Snarky Puppy. I am the newest member of the band. I met them in 2017 after the band I was in prior broke up. I auditioned for them on stage at two festivals; Campout for the Cause and Beanstalk. We immediately connected both musically and personally. Most of them went to music school at the University of Colorado Denver. We play indie soul music and have a great deal of respect for each other as musicians. I’ve had the opportunity to bring two of my original compositions to the band for our upcoming album. They are my musical family!

I perform regularly with Mama Magnolia, Gold Leader, Michelle Sarah Band, Kessel Run, Selasee and the Fafa Family, and Casey Russel. I currently play in wedding bands and in jazz combos at corporate events. I’ve played at festivals such as the Northwest String Summit in Oregon and Summercamp in Illinois. This October, I will be flying back to Fort Worth to make a record with Robert Ellis at Niles City Sound. I’ve traveled coast to coast playing music. I hope that music eventually takes me around the world.

Somehow, I think the saxophone will always be an important part of my life. I am proud of how far I’ve come on this journey. Music, like life, is about the process and not the end goal. I’m grateful for all the people who’ve inspired me and helped me over the years. I am so glad that the younger version of me went down into that basement and decided to see if I could make a sound on the saxophone.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There have certainly been obstacles. Here are a few of the most noteworthy ones:

During my Junior year of college, I started dealing with some health complications that directly affected my saxophone playing. I developed a problem with being able to swallow normally, as well as a condition called Velopharyngeal Insufficiency, the result of which meant that I could barely practice at all. It took me years to eventually recover from it, and I was very close to giving up on my music degree. I also felt very alone at this time because most of the people I spoke to about it had never heard of it. Over the years, I learned techniques to manage it.

Another remarkably difficult time for me was the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting in March of 2020, every gig I had booked for the year was either canceled or postponed. It was especially hard for horn players because when masked indoor music returned to Denver, the city still wouldn’t allow players of wind instruments to perform indoors. I had about one full year with no music work whatsoever, save for a few recording sessions done from home, and music lessons over Zoom. I wasn’t sure if or when the world would return to normal and was speculating on whether I had the option of a music career at all anymore. Thankfully things have picked up again, and I now have more lucrative work than before the pandemic.

Living a freelancer’s life is challenging. It took me a long time to learn how to create my own schedule. There is anxiety in the fact that I don’t always know for sure that I will have enough work in the future. It can be very difficult to judge which projects I should spend time on and which ones are holding me back. I’ll always be learning how to be better at this.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My passion is writing and performing original music with my bands, but I’m also a for-hire musician. I do recording sessions, concerts, private lessons, and composing/arranging work. I am proud of the fact that I am a versatile musician. I’ve spent many hours learning how to play a variety of genres of music. I’d say that I’m known for being reliable and for my work ethic. I have a high attention to detail, and I respect the music of whoever I am working for at the time. I think that what sets me apart is my diverse musical background, from jazz to classical and from afro-beat to neo-soul, I have developed a melodic sensibility that is unique to me.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
In my early twenties a trumpet player friend of mine gave me a book on strength training, and ever since I have been passionate about performing compound weightlifting movements such as the squat, deadlift, and barbell snatch. I find the movements to be beautiful and I actually think there are many parallels between a musical practice regimen and a physical training regimen.

Contact Info:

• Website: alexcazet.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexcazetmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexcazetmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw_EAKjkez7fPteTDqHJWBA
• Other: https://alexcazet.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits
Grace Clark, Charla Harvey, Lauren Withrow, Wild Muse Media, Todd Kushnir, Sal DeVincenzo