Gabe Baltazar
| Gabe Baltazar | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Gabriel Ruiz Hiroshi Baltazar Jr. |
| Born |
November 1, 1929 Hilo, Hawaii |
| Origin |
 Hilo, Hawaii |
| Genres |
Jazz Pop |
| Occupation(s) | Multireedist, conductor, music director |
| Instruments | Saxophones Clarinets Flutes piano oboe |
| Years active | 1948- |
| Labels |
Capitol Contemporary Creative World |
| Associated acts |
Stan Kenton Dizzy Gillespie Terry Gibbs |
| Notable instruments | |
| Alto saxophone | |
Gabriel Ruiz Hiroshi "Gabe" Baltazar, Jr. (born November 1, 1929 in Hilo, Hawaii) is an Asian-American jazz alto saxophonist and woodwind doubler.
His mother, born Chiyoko Haraga on a Hawaii sugarcane plantation, was the daughter of Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii to work on the plantations around 1900. His father, Gabriel Baltazar Sr., was born in Manila in 1906 and came to the United States to work as a musician in the mid-1920s. Gabe started playing reed instruments while the his younger brother Norman Baltazar took up the trumpet.
Gabe Baltazar was first playing music at the age of eleven when he was started on the Eb Clarinet, later he would switch to alto saxophone. There were numerous big bands stationed at Hickam Field during this time (World War II) and Baltazar got to hear Artie Shaw, Sam Donahue, and Claude Thornhill. Batlazar's main influences growing up were Benny Carter, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Willie Smith and Johnny Hodges. By age 16 (1946) he had already been playing professionally for two years and was first introduced to Charlie Parker's playing by jazz trombonist Frank Rehak.
After his graduation from McKinley High School in 1948, he went to study at Interlochen for eight weeks in the summer. Gabe Baltazar then moved to the U.S. mainland from Hawaii to attend Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland for two years. Baltazar notes his meeting with Charlie Parker during a visit to New York in 1948 as one of the biggest musical inspirations of his life. He questioned Parker extensively during this meeting and it would become an inspiration for his own playing to closely resemble that of the famed alto saxophonist.
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