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Retiring Professor May Bring Sax Quartet's Swan Song

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 18, 2008

Updated: 02/17/2008 09:11 pm

NEW PORT RICHEY - After nearly a quarter-century together, the Bay Area Saxophone Quartet played what may be one of its final shows Sunday at the Presbyterian Church of Seven Springs.

"We're calling it our farewell concert series," said quartet member Jim Burge of Carrollwood.

Terry Mohn, a music professor at the University of Tampa, is retiring this year and leaving the quartet he joined in 1983. He's moving to Tennessee this summer, which will make rehearsals tough, he said, joking.

After decades of playing across the Tampa Bay area, the quartet is, for now, down to a handful of concerts. It has three or four performances booked for the coming months, including one at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the University of South Florida.

After those performances, it's unclear what will happen to the group.

The players replaced one member in 1985 when baritone saxophonist Ted Hope, 46, came on board after studying under Burge at Hillsborough Community College.

With the members aging - quartet founder Jay B. Starkey of Odessa is 72, and Burge is 61 - will the remaining members replace Mohn?

"We haven't even decided that," said Burge, who now teaches at the University of Tampa. "We've been talking about it."

Any new member would face a steep learning curve, Starkey said. After more than two decades together, the group is a well-tuned instrument with a large catalog of music, most of it classical.

That person also would have to pick up Mohn's role as alto sax player. The group members are all specialists, with Starkey playing soprano, Burge on tenor and Hope on baritone sax.

For now, the group is relishing its remaining shows and playing some of its favorites.

Sunday's performance for an audience of 60 people featured works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Debussy and Jean Baptiste Singelee, who wrote for the saxophone.

Sunday's show brought the saxophone back to its roots as a classical instrument. Although musicians such as Charlie Parker and John Coltrane forever linked the saxophone to jazz, inventor Adolph Sax intended his instrument to fill a symphonic niche between woodwinds, such as the clarinet, and brass, such as the trumpet, Starkey said.

Mohn's imminent departure cast a shadow over Sunday's performance, even as it allowed the quartet's members to reminisce about their years together. Mohn described how Starkey persuaded Burge and him to join by telling each the other already had agreed.

In the audience, Carla Kranz, a longtime friend of Starkey and music teacher at Pasco-Hernando Community College, was wistful about the quartet's possible demise.

"I'm hoping they find someone to fill Mohn's spot and go on," she said. "But Terry will be missed."

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201 or kwiatrowski @tampatrib.com.

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