Mike Axel

The Lost Tapes

Mike got an early Christmas gift in November - a small cassette player that writes mp3 files to a microSD card. I have over a hundred cassettes and a project to digitize them. Here are some my playing from 1972 to the mid '90's.

Here is an untitled piece from 1972 that I wrote for a jazz quintet at Crane. It is played by (I think) Rob Ratner tenor sax, Bob Jackson trombone, Russ Kassoff piano, Greg Maker bass, John Leddy drums. Quintet

I arranged Old Man River for jazz ensemble in 1973 at Crane. The solo is by Darryl Sleszynski alto sax. Old Man River

I found a cassette of my recitals at Crane School of Music.
1974 Concerto in D - Leopold Mozart
1975 Concerto in Bb - Henry Purcell

I found an unmarked cassette that it is the Crane School of Music Jazz Lab Band Spring 1975 my last concert in college in Potsdam. The quality isn't the best. This is the Buddy Rich arrangement of West Side Story Medley. Before that concert I played that 4 times for concerts on a tour with Crane Jazz Lab band in Central NY area, Hudson River and Long Island finished with a recording session at Alfred Music.

I have an audition cassette I made in 1980 to send with applications for open teaching position in colleges after earning a Masters degree in Jazz Education at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.

My 1980 Audition Tape

Concerto in D major - Adagio and Allegro by L. Mozart played in 1978 at Central Methodist Church, Utica, NY.
Bach's Brandenburg Concerto 2 Allegro and Charlie Parker's Yardbird Suite with a play along recorded in Miami, FL in 1980.
Three clips from a 1975 Spring concert of the Crane School of Music Jazz Lab Band at SUNY Postdam, NY - Kenton's Here's That Rainy Day, Come Back To Me with vocal Kiki Britt, Maynard Ferguson's Mother Fingers.

When I finished my masters degree I got a job playing 6 nights a week at the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel in Fort Lauderdale backing a male singer. 5 nights we opened with Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good. When I came back to Utica from Miami I played in the MVCC Jazz Ensemble in 1980. We played Feels So Good.

Here are 3 Stan Kenton songs from 1982 concert where I played lead trumpet with the Whitesboro High School Alumni Jazz Ensemble.

Here'sThat Rainy Day
My Funny Valentine
Send In The Clowns

Here is a song I wrote, arranged and soloed on with the Ross Warner Octet in Lowell, MA in 1993. The Fourth Dimension