thedrifter
02-16-07, 08:38 AM
Friday, February 16, 2007
Chuck Madere keeps the horns blowing
Chuck Madere of Anaheim fishes the marbles out of tubas and repairs holes in saxophones.
By ERIC CARPENTER
The Orange County Register
Finding Chuck Madere's workshop is a breeze. Just follow the sound of the wind.
The lilting tones of a flute. The swinging rhythm of a tenor sax. The blast of a slide trombone.
Where you hear the sound of a wind instrument in this sprawling, crowded music shop, you'll find Madere, surrounded by shiny trumpets, rusted saxophones and antique clarinets long ago left for dead.
He isn't a professional musician. But after years of practice, he plays all these instruments.
For 50 years, musicians – from the fledgling junior-high player to the seasoned pro – have turned to him to patch a hole in a horn or repair a worn pad. His job is to keep a horn making sweet sounds.
A sign behind the counter of the Anaheim repair shop he owned for decades summed it up: "Don't let the music stop."
And to think, it all started with an envelope full of stamps.
A STAMP ON HIS MEMORY
Madere was 10, growing up in Baton Rouge, La., when he received a letter encouraging him to start a stamp collection. He could keep the enclosed stamps and send in $5 or send the stamps back.
He didn't have $5. And he lost the stamps.
After a few days, a man wearing a black suit, carrying a briefcase, drove up to his house. Madere panicked and ran to the back yard to hide. He was certain the man had come to take him to jail.
When he finally responded to his mom's calls, he discovered that the man was selling musical instruments.
"I was so relieved," Madere remembers. "I would have been interested in anything he was selling."
He looked at a trumpet. Not his style. Then a clarinet.
"I thought, 'Wow, that has so many keys. I need to know how that works.' "
Madere played the clarinet through high school, also taking up other reed instruments like saxophone. He assumed he'd leave music behind when he joined the Marines at 18. Until an officer announced that they were looking for musicians, as only a drill sergeant could: "Which one of you girls likes to make people dance?"
And with that, Madere was touring the world, playing concertos and marches with the Marine band, from Opelika, Ala., to Okinawa, Japan.
Three years later, he was back in Louisiana looking for work. He found it at a music store repairing clarinets. He'd have to learn to repair the other instruments.
He played in the concert band at Louisiana State University, but chose to work full time rather than study. He made 75 cents an hour, 50 cents below minimum wage. But it's what he loved.
He arrived before work started and stayed late to study fingering charts and learn to adjust his lip formations to play everything from a hulking tuba to a tiny piccolo.
The most difficult: Bassoon.
"I don't need to be able to play a concerto on each instrument, just a scale to make sure that when I hand it back, it's working," he says.
A FLOOD OF REPAIRS
Like many Marines who came through Camp Pendleton, Madere wanted to return to California for the mild climate. In 1960, he moved to Los Angeles and quickly landed a job repairing horns.
He bounced from one music shop to another and finally to the F.E. Olds instrument factory in Fullerton before getting married in 1972. He and his wife, Shizuya, settled in Anaheim.
He decided to try running his own shop. He opened in a 1,000-square-foot space near Katella Avenue and Gilbert Street.
His early concerns about not finding enough work vanished. He was overwhelmed by students who needed his help. For the simple – to loosen a sticky trumpet valve or pull out a mouthpiece stuck in a French horn. And for, well, the unusual – to remove a golf ball from the tubing of a trombone or a drumstick from the bell of a trumpet.
"I'm always giving tips to kids, telling them to put their instrument in a sturdier case, to not play after eating sugar. But the next day, I see more broken horns and remove what looks like half a candy bar from a saxophone.
"Kids just don't listen to that advice… But it's kept me in business."
School districts from Newport-Mesa to Long Beach discovered his services, bringing hundreds of horns to him for tune-ups. He'd work 12 hours a day and more just to keep up.
In 1997, after 25 years running his own shop, Madere was ready to give up his own business. Rents kept rising, and the shopping center deteriorated until it was finally sold to make way for new houses.
But Madere wasn't ready to retire. His three daughters – all accomplished clarinet players, he proudly points out – were grown. He had plenty of time to travel with his wife.
So within a year, he found a job at one of the larger music chains, Sam Ash in Cerritos, where he can work regular hours and even get out early on Tuesday nights to play in the Huntington Beach Community Concert Band.
He plays bass clarinet. The parts are easier, fewer notes than a clarinet in most tunes.
"That way I can keep playing. But I don't have to practice as much," he says.
Madere keeps his instrument close by to play on his breaks. But the work rarely stops.
NO RETIREMENT PLANNED
On this day, he sits in his chair, wearing all black except for the blue denim apron. Jazz radio plays in his shop. He uses his bare hands, callused from years of intricate work, to re-pad a tenor saxophone.
He's surrounded by tool boxes full of parts, some new, some salvaged from old horns. He opens a drawer of leather pads. Next to him sits a 6-volt lantern battery with a simple wire and a flashlight bulb attached.
"I built this to put inside and check for leaks. You can buy a real one in a catalog for 100 bucks, but this one has served me just fine."
Madere's shop is lined with tools that have worked just fine for a half-century. Tools that he's collected, crafted or jerry-rigged for everything that could go wrong with a horn: Metal balls of all sizes to remove dents from the tube of a flugelhorn. Long rods to clear a trombone of those annoying marbles.
He misses having his name on a shop. But mostly he likes the freedom. No payrolls, nobody telling him what to do.
His bosses dread the idea of him retiring.
"He is the backbone of confidence for salesmen and for customers to know they are not only getting a good wind instrument but will have a great technician if something should go wrong," says sales manager Dave Najar.
"It's not just knowing you've got a technician, it's knowing that you've got Chuck."
Madere has had three apprentices during his 50 years. None had the patience to stick with it.
"The thought of retiring really hasn't crossed my mind," Madere says. "My hands are still good, so I just keep on going."
And so does the music.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or ecarpenter@ocregister.com
Ellie
Chuck Madere keeps the horns blowing
Chuck Madere of Anaheim fishes the marbles out of tubas and repairs holes in saxophones.
By ERIC CARPENTER
The Orange County Register
Finding Chuck Madere's workshop is a breeze. Just follow the sound of the wind.
The lilting tones of a flute. The swinging rhythm of a tenor sax. The blast of a slide trombone.
Where you hear the sound of a wind instrument in this sprawling, crowded music shop, you'll find Madere, surrounded by shiny trumpets, rusted saxophones and antique clarinets long ago left for dead.
He isn't a professional musician. But after years of practice, he plays all these instruments.
For 50 years, musicians – from the fledgling junior-high player to the seasoned pro – have turned to him to patch a hole in a horn or repair a worn pad. His job is to keep a horn making sweet sounds.
A sign behind the counter of the Anaheim repair shop he owned for decades summed it up: "Don't let the music stop."
And to think, it all started with an envelope full of stamps.
A STAMP ON HIS MEMORY
Madere was 10, growing up in Baton Rouge, La., when he received a letter encouraging him to start a stamp collection. He could keep the enclosed stamps and send in $5 or send the stamps back.
He didn't have $5. And he lost the stamps.
After a few days, a man wearing a black suit, carrying a briefcase, drove up to his house. Madere panicked and ran to the back yard to hide. He was certain the man had come to take him to jail.
When he finally responded to his mom's calls, he discovered that the man was selling musical instruments.
"I was so relieved," Madere remembers. "I would have been interested in anything he was selling."
He looked at a trumpet. Not his style. Then a clarinet.
"I thought, 'Wow, that has so many keys. I need to know how that works.' "
Madere played the clarinet through high school, also taking up other reed instruments like saxophone. He assumed he'd leave music behind when he joined the Marines at 18. Until an officer announced that they were looking for musicians, as only a drill sergeant could: "Which one of you girls likes to make people dance?"
And with that, Madere was touring the world, playing concertos and marches with the Marine band, from Opelika, Ala., to Okinawa, Japan.
Three years later, he was back in Louisiana looking for work. He found it at a music store repairing clarinets. He'd have to learn to repair the other instruments.
He played in the concert band at Louisiana State University, but chose to work full time rather than study. He made 75 cents an hour, 50 cents below minimum wage. But it's what he loved.
He arrived before work started and stayed late to study fingering charts and learn to adjust his lip formations to play everything from a hulking tuba to a tiny piccolo.
The most difficult: Bassoon.
"I don't need to be able to play a concerto on each instrument, just a scale to make sure that when I hand it back, it's working," he says.
A FLOOD OF REPAIRS
Like many Marines who came through Camp Pendleton, Madere wanted to return to California for the mild climate. In 1960, he moved to Los Angeles and quickly landed a job repairing horns.
He bounced from one music shop to another and finally to the F.E. Olds instrument factory in Fullerton before getting married in 1972. He and his wife, Shizuya, settled in Anaheim.
He decided to try running his own shop. He opened in a 1,000-square-foot space near Katella Avenue and Gilbert Street.
His early concerns about not finding enough work vanished. He was overwhelmed by students who needed his help. For the simple – to loosen a sticky trumpet valve or pull out a mouthpiece stuck in a French horn. And for, well, the unusual – to remove a golf ball from the tubing of a trombone or a drumstick from the bell of a trumpet.
"I'm always giving tips to kids, telling them to put their instrument in a sturdier case, to not play after eating sugar. But the next day, I see more broken horns and remove what looks like half a candy bar from a saxophone.
"Kids just don't listen to that advice… But it's kept me in business."
School districts from Newport-Mesa to Long Beach discovered his services, bringing hundreds of horns to him for tune-ups. He'd work 12 hours a day and more just to keep up.
In 1997, after 25 years running his own shop, Madere was ready to give up his own business. Rents kept rising, and the shopping center deteriorated until it was finally sold to make way for new houses.
But Madere wasn't ready to retire. His three daughters – all accomplished clarinet players, he proudly points out – were grown. He had plenty of time to travel with his wife.
So within a year, he found a job at one of the larger music chains, Sam Ash in Cerritos, where he can work regular hours and even get out early on Tuesday nights to play in the Huntington Beach Community Concert Band.
He plays bass clarinet. The parts are easier, fewer notes than a clarinet in most tunes.
"That way I can keep playing. But I don't have to practice as much," he says.
Madere keeps his instrument close by to play on his breaks. But the work rarely stops.
NO RETIREMENT PLANNED
On this day, he sits in his chair, wearing all black except for the blue denim apron. Jazz radio plays in his shop. He uses his bare hands, callused from years of intricate work, to re-pad a tenor saxophone.
He's surrounded by tool boxes full of parts, some new, some salvaged from old horns. He opens a drawer of leather pads. Next to him sits a 6-volt lantern battery with a simple wire and a flashlight bulb attached.
"I built this to put inside and check for leaks. You can buy a real one in a catalog for 100 bucks, but this one has served me just fine."
Madere's shop is lined with tools that have worked just fine for a half-century. Tools that he's collected, crafted or jerry-rigged for everything that could go wrong with a horn: Metal balls of all sizes to remove dents from the tube of a flugelhorn. Long rods to clear a trombone of those annoying marbles.
He misses having his name on a shop. But mostly he likes the freedom. No payrolls, nobody telling him what to do.
His bosses dread the idea of him retiring.
"He is the backbone of confidence for salesmen and for customers to know they are not only getting a good wind instrument but will have a great technician if something should go wrong," says sales manager Dave Najar.
"It's not just knowing you've got a technician, it's knowing that you've got Chuck."
Madere has had three apprentices during his 50 years. None had the patience to stick with it.
"The thought of retiring really hasn't crossed my mind," Madere says. "My hands are still good, so I just keep on going."
And so does the music.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or ecarpenter@ocregister.com
Ellie