“Don’t play the saxophone, let it play you,” jazz legend Charlie Parker famously observed.
Parker is one of 14-year old Redondo Union High saxophonist Carly Stock’s idols.
Stock’s mother lisa, a singer, and her dad Bill, a guitarist, inspired her to join the Parras Elementary school band in the fifth grade.
When they took her to buy her first instrument, she was deciding between the flute and the saxophone.
“I couldn’t make a sound out of a flute,” Stock recalled, laughing. “I still can’t make a sound out of it.”
She picked a saxaphone.
“The saxophone is a lot less precise and controlled,” she said. “I’m drawn to the blues and it’s a great instrument for improvisation.”
Stock now plays in Redondo High’s marching band and the jazz ensemble. She’s also attends the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, where she is one of the youngest members of the jazz ensemble and big band.
“In the jazz ensemble, we don’t use sheet music,” Stock said. “We play everything by ear. Lee Secard teaches lots of theory. It’s rigid, he pushes you to work.”
Despite her many musical obligations, Stock is an honor student, excelling in both science and art. The saxophone might be the perfect marriage of those two disciplines: the instrument requires a scientific mind with an artist’s touch.
If she’s not doing homework or at band practice, she is playing sax at home. During her free class period at the end of her school day Stock often can be found in the band room, practicing her sax by herself.
Band director Ray Vizcarra, who came to the Redondo High last year, has been a driving mentor for the young musician.
“He’s really strict on the field with the marching band,” she said. “But he is also really open and inspirational.”
“Carly is very promising young talent and a wonderful addition to the RUHS Band Program,” Vizcarra said. “She is quite a talented young lady who likes to help others. She is also polite and humble, as any talented musician should be, because she knows that she has room for growth.”
Under Vizcarra’s direction, the Redondo Union marching band won first place in its division for both musical effect and the visual sweepstakes. Competitions, concerts and Colburn keep Stock busy most weekends.
“The Colburn ensembles are fun because you’re around so many accomplished musicians, especially in the Big Band,” she said. “Of course in Big Band you get to do solos. Blues is what I learned first and what my parents do, but I’m learning that I like jazz a lot, too.”
Stock identifies John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley as her top three idols. She practices at home on a 1927 Buescher True Tone alto sax.
“Adderley is more advanced and harder to grasp,” she said. “I mostly relate to Coltrane because he’s very simple and I understand him more. I like his sound and phrasing, and obviously I’m drawn to him because he is a blues icon.”
Beyond ensemble settings, Stock has gotten the chance to play gigs with smaller groups, building her stage confidence. Most recently, she joined her parents and their friend, guitarist Jim Zabel, for a show at the Power of Art in Redondo Beach. They called their group “Avenue J.”
“My parents brought me up on blues,” Stock said of her parents, who both performed professionally.
Stock has recently fallen in with local blues jam leader “Big Daddy T.”
“She met him at Suzy’s in Hermosa during a blues jam there and he instantly took a liking to her,” Lisa said. “He Invited her to play at Carmine’s in West LA.”
It was the first time Stock was paid to play.
In addition to jazz, blues and Big Band, Carly is drawn to popular music from the early 2000s, such as Panic at the Disco and the All American Rejects. She said she’ll listen to anything “except rap and country.” Her first rock concert was Aerosmith at age 7, accompanied by her mother who is a huge fan.
Stock is certain music will always be a part of her.
“I’m not sure if it will be a career for me. But I will definitely play for a long time,” she said.
