Robbie Schlosser, of Magnolia Jazz Band – longer bio

Thank you again for visiting!

Hi, I’m Robbie Schlosser, an inspired jazzman playing my way through life, and loving it!

Thanks for looking at my quick biography, and I’m glad you’re now reading my longer biography.  Frankly, I think this version is more interesting.  I look forward to talking with you soon, and in the meantime, let me introduce myself in greater detail.

I make a living going to parties, helping people enjoy their landmark celebrations — weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, holiday parties, banquets, you name it!  With over 30 years’ experience at thousands of events, I’ve learned what it takes to get people into the swing of things and have a great time.  I hope we’ll have an opportunity to help you one of these days.

I’m enjoying a wonderful life, and I took a roundabout way to reach this point.  Always curious and a lifelong learner, my early ambitions for a scientific career eventually succumbed to my passion for music and love for entertaining people.

Music has always been my main hobby. I began learning violin back in the third grade, cornet the next year, and string bass 27 years later. Thank heavens for the music program in my elementary school, or today I’d probably have an honest-to-goodness job.  During high school and college, my musical interests focused on playing cornet in marching bands and French horn in concert bands and local orchestras. In high school, some pals and I formed a little jazz band, and for several years we amazed ourselves and astonished our friends.

After college and graduate studies, I lived in New York state and worked as a scientist and a science teacher. While living in Buffalo, I also played occasionally with several informal dixieland bands, including one named “The South Happiness Street Society Skiffle Band”. I moved to northern California in the early ’70s, to study at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. In my spare time, I joined the South Bay Traditional Jazz Society, where I met many musicians I would work with over the next 30-plus years.

I formed the Magnolia Jazz Band in January 1975.  A San Jose nightclub owner heard me playing trumpet at an after-hours jam session, and hired me to lead a jazz band to entertain his customers. Though I was still a graduate student at Stanford University, I called five friends from the South Bay Traditional Jazz Society and organized the original Magnolia Jazz Band. That first job lasted six weeks, every Friday and Saturday night. I quickly realized that music and entertaining were my real passions, and my Stanford days were numbered.

Thanks to many long-time friends and clients, I still perform nearly every day, and I manage the band’s business. The Bay Area traditionally boasts plenty of wonderful musicians and lots of parties, and I learned early that I preferred local work to life “on the road”.  When time permits, I enjoy an occasional out-of-town performance with a few well-known musicians across the country.

In the early 1980’s, the Magnolia Jazz Band made seven recordings, toured through the west coast, the midwest and the east coast, and was a popular favorite at many jazz festivals.  During those years, I performed occasionally with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans. A few years later, in addition to working with my own band, I worked in San Francisco as a regular member of the Royal Society Jazz Orchestra, performing on a PBS TV special, several international cruises and jazz festivals, and numerous special concerts across the country. From 1991-1997, I appeared regularly with the Butch Thompson Trio, which received national fame on Garrison Keillor’s PBS radio program, “A Prairie Home Companion”.

Any day, you can find me at an elegant wedding, a spirited party, or a formal business function.  I still free-lance occasionally with other local bands, too, and I keep in touch with dozens of musicians each month. I continually learns from all my fellow jazzmen, and every day brings something new.

Several years ago I listed 25 interesting things (in no particular order)
I often think about, like “What’s this and why?” and “What’s next?”.
If something I say here catches your attention, please tell me.
I’d like to know more about you, too.

1. Once this fact was impressive. When I was born, my
parents lived in southern California, and I’m told I was born in the
same room (Cedars of Lebanon Hospital) where Bing Crosby’s twin sons
were born. What? Who’s Bing Crosby? Oh…

2. Parents. No wonder I love music, I grew up in a
musical household. My father was a physician, with his office in our
home, so we kids had to be real quiet during office hours. My mother
was a housewife, my father’s office receptionist, and a pretty good
pianist — playing Chopin was her favorite. My father loved his family,
his work, and music & dancing, so for years we all played music,
attended concerts and musical shows, and gathered around the TV
whenever a Fred Astaire movie was on.

3. Role model. Other than my parents, I can’t recall any
outstanding role model when I grew up, but it certainly was no GI Joe
macho super hero action figure. Sure I’m sometimes bold and decisive
these days, but I’m usually cautious and thoughtful.

4. Siblings. I’m the oldest of four kids. My brother,
Arthur, is a pediatrician in a Kaiser Hospital in LA, and in his off
hours he’s a country music song-writer and performer — to my ears,
like Harry Chapin meets Johnny Cash. My two sisters also live in
California — Barbara (a former middle school teacher) is an amateur
quilter and Kay (a former lab technician) is an amateur orchid-grower.

5. Garden. Funny thing about a musician — his creation
is here for one glorious moment and then it’s gone forever. Like a chef
preparing a meal. Like a florist preparing an arrangement. Not like the
creation of a photographer, an architect, or a gardener. Maybe that
contrast is why I enjoy my garden so much. It grows slowly, but it’s
always there. I can see the effect of everything I do, slowly but
surely, and nourishing it takes all my patience.

6. Live music. Like comparing a bass guitar with a bass
violin, live music and recorded music are close, but different. The
notes may be identical for both, but the music isn’t the same. Each is
good, though. Live music is precious because it’s fleeting, but both
can be beautiful, inspiring, and rousing — whatever it takes to help
people enjoy whatever they’re doing. This is what I love doing with the
music I create, and this is a wonderful way to make a living.

7. Reading. I’ve always loved reading. I consider a book
as a conversation with the author. Whether writing fact or fiction, he
has something to tell me, and I always learn something new. Sometimes I
“speed-read” (run my finger down the center of a page in a second,
glimpse a few words on either side of my finger, and gather the sense
of the story.) Other times I chew on a single page for hours. Do you
have both kinds of conversations, too?

8. Marriage. This August, Bunch (my wife) and I will be
married 35 years. In 1974, we met in a commune I was starting in Menlo
Park, her then boyfriend was out of town for a while, she and I fell in
love, and six weeks later we drove to a scenic spot outside the Bay
Area and got married. No fancy reception — just two witnesses and us.
YAY FOR INTUITION!

9. Public school. Music has always been my passion. They
tell me I was born singing, and I began playing instruments with violin
in the 3rd grade, switching to trumpet the next year, and French horn
five years later. Thank God for that old public school music program,
or today I’d probably have an honest job!

10. College. I attended college preparing for a career in
medicine. Fate and I eventually disapproved the plan, and after
graduating I continued studying nutrition and physiology five more
years. “Enough”, I said, and left academia for teaching science in
junior & senior high schools. Took me three years to burn out!

11. Teaching. I came to Stanford’s Graduate School of Education
to learn from the world’s best how education OUGHT to be conducted. It
took me another five years to learn I’d rather make a living as a
musician than as something like a public school superintendent. Five
years — I must have been in the slow group!

12. Cooking. I’ve been working and socializing with caterers
for over 30 years, and I’m still learning to admire good food presented
well. I enjoy cooking, but have a limited repertoire. My favorite is
Jambalaya, that great New Orleans specialty. One of my sisters recently
observed that I prefer cooking and eating things that contain lots of
chopped-up ingredients. Dunno why, but she’s right!

13. Old friends. My high school class is having a big reunion
this fall (all 89 of us, I think), and I’m making preparations to
attend (a quick trip back to Long Island). Now I’ve found another
practical use for social networking programs like Facebook and websites
like Classmates.com. It’s a blast from the past to re-connect with all
those people I used to see 5 days/week for up to 12 years.

14. History. One of my enduring hobbies is reading about
history and trying to keep an open mind. I’m afraid I don’t sympathize
with the “Great Man” theory many historians like. They trace historical
progress through a series of significant individuals, each doing great
things at the right time, in the right place. Instead, I think the REAL
story of history is our day-to-day persistence, fighting to go on. It’s
miraculous that humankind has endured so long, despite the long chain
of ego-maniacs who briefly float to the top, occasionally to benefit
the human community but usually to “make their mark”, which then
triggers another crisis. Man, you gotta be an optimist to stay alive!

15. Humor. Oooops, sorry about that. I better lighten up. Well,
I enjoy playing with words. I don’t know what you call it, but I
frequently ask questions like, “Well, before we resume, shouldn’t we
sume first”?

16. Fame. Hi, fans of “A Prairie Home Companion”: I once met
Garrison Keillor. In the early 1990s I’d occasionally travel and
concertize with Butch Thompson, an absolutely marvelous old-style
pianist like Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton. We’d perform at
community concerts throughout the mid-west, and once (on Halloween
1992, I think), we performed on the well-known PBS radio program. I
remember being introduced to Mr Keillor, so he could figure out how to
pronounce my name, and that was that. Ah, fame! At least he announced
my name coast-to-coast.

17. Technology. I’m CONSTANTLY amazed by technology’s advances,
and how quickly we adapt to them. Until about 15 years ago, most people
walked around here without a phone in their pocket, yet managed to do
whatever they needed to make life worthwhile. Nowadays, who among us
would consider giving up our cellphone? You?

18. Work. Several times in my life I’ve actually held a steady
job. The most recent lasted from March 1979 to January 1980. To buy my
house in July 1979, I needed to show the bank (who gave the mortgage)
that I had a good, reliable income. That’s where Western Electric came
in. They hired me to push a pencil and to blueprint where Pacific Bell
workers should install new equipment in their central offices. Compared
to playing music and entertaining people at parties, this was
mind-numbing work, but I held on to that steady paycheck as long as I
could.

19. Blogging. I love to daydream about our future, and I think
blogging has astonishing potential. Each of us (with only a desktop
computer, or a cellphone, and a little imagination) has the power to
keep a diary online, broadcast it worldwide in an instant, and dialogue
online with others about THEIR broadcasts. Look at mine.
So far, the early consequences of blogging are enormous — think about
nearly universal personal communication and the widespread transmission
of our ideas, how human society is bound more tightly now, and how
political institutions are changing worldwide. Progress is moving fast,
it never stops, and these consequences are only the beginning…

20. Communication. On a similar note, back in the early 1980’s,
I remember a year or two that saw the release of the Macintosh (with
it’s Graphical User Interface and WYSIWYG), PageMaker 1.0 (I think it
was the first real page-layout application), and the LaserWriter
printer. From today’s perspective, that was a watershed moment in
written communication. Call me Quasimodo, but I have a hunch that
growth in today’s smart cellphone (and its future incarnations),
wireless transmission, and all the social networking applications on
the internet will have a far greater impact! This is just hardware and
software, folks, but look where we’re taking it.

21. Mentors. I think mentors and models are great resources for
helping us meet worthwhile ambitions. We ALL need plenty of good ones,
to set examples and to give advice. Andy Norblin, my regular guitarist,
studied the recordings of Howard Roberts, a fabulous studio guitarist
of the 1960’s and 70’s. Gary Milliken, my regular clarinetist, can
probably play note-for-note everything he ever heard played by Paul
Desmond, who won fame with Dave Brubeck’s quartet. And in my youth I
memorized melodies and solos recorded by Bix Beiderbecke and Louis
Armstrong, two early jazz pioneers. We all do it — it’s how we learn
“the rules”, before we can proceed to personalize them. We all need
people to help us learn what we want to know. Today I’m intent on
learning about marketing and blogging, and two of my best models are my
friends Andy Ebon and Stacie Tamaki. Visit my blog
and see their influence. I continually learn from them, as well as from
dozens of my blogging colleagues. Thanks, everyone — you know who you
are!

22. Minnesota. My brother-in-law, Steve Plasencia, is the track
coach at the University of Minnesota. A two-time Olympian (Seoul 1988,
Barcelona 1992), he’s an outstanding runner (8th in 10K at the 1987
World Games) and a great coach (the Golden Gophers are doing fine this
year). Every summer since 1998 his cross-country team goes on a 7-day
intensive training camp in Minnesota’s north woods (Nevis, MN, near
Park Rapids, just to pinpoint it for you). Bunch (my wife, a former
project manager, and the family cooking expert) goes along to prepare
3-healthy-meals-a-day for about 22 hungry athletes. Whenever I can, I
fly up for a few days to relax and peel potatoes for the
“carbo-loading” runners.

23. California. I love mild weather, hate the cold. I moved to
California in 1973, after living 8 years in and around upstate New
York. Imagine shoveling snow out of your driveway five months a year.
Imagine seeing no sunshine for weeks at a time every winter. It made
people crazy. When I left, I packed everything I owned into my car and
drove non-stop to the San Francisco Bay Area. Took me about 60 hours.

24. Silence. I think silence can be golden. The way “white
space” on a page calls attention to the words or pictures, silence in
music or a conversation provides focus and emphasis. I always hear
musicians talk about knowing what sounds to leave out, striving for
grace, beauty, and meaning. The same is true for a wonderful
conversation. You’ll know it when you hear it. Or don’t.

25. Thinking. You know, selecting 25 interesting things about
me has been a lot more challenging than I expected (maybe because I’m
pretty dull after all, or maybe there are just too many gems to choose
from). Nevertheless, I’m glad I took the time to come up with this
list, and I recommend you do the same. Pause and reflect — Socrates,
who said “The unexamined life is not worth living”, would be proud of
you.