David Baron Stevens

David Baron Stevens is a Performer, Composer, Arranger, Event Planner, and Music Educator, as well as Entrepreneur, Mac/PC Technician, and Labor Consultant. His skills are world-class, with the experience and expertise on many subjects which allow him to excel in various roles. His is best known, however, for his exciting and emotional saxophone performances that leave audiences as excited and moved as they are fascinated by his technique and presence. His love of all sorts of genres of music informs and blends his own sound into something that can be appreciated by any class of citizen, anywhere in the world. In that way, we all truly speak the same language. early years David Baron Stevens was born in August, 1980, in Hollywood, California, at Kaiser Permanente on Sunset Boulevard (yes, it's on the birth certificate!!!). His father, David Stevens, a Romani from New York with natural talent in music and dance, met his mother, Sonia Flores, an immigrant from El Salvador who entered the USA at age 8 with her father and family. Age 6 would see his first instrument, a Casio keyboard which had a record function. It wasn't long before he was composing and recording songs to impress the cutest girl in class. Early study of music After his family broke up and a move away from his father and the Los Angeles area to Central California, namely the dairy town of Tulare, DBS began to study music in the public school system at age 12 with Susan Burley (aka Shagoian). Susan's sheer love and respect for jazz and big band music and her exposure to her children (students) of some truly great professionals, such as her late brother Paul Shagoian and many others, led so many of my contemporaries who went on to careers in music and are eternally grateful for her guidance and structure. Credit is also due his dear uncle, Manuel Flores, a trumpeter in Los Angeles, who gave him his first, and what would be his only lesson for the next 6 years. One summer, when he was not even yet 16 years old, they sat down and spoke about young DBS' desire to be a pro in music. His words changed the life and trajectory of that young directionless boy: "Son, if you want to be a professional and get paid to do this, you need to do what everyone else does: go to work 6 hours per day, and then you'll get paid. We musicians have two full-time jobs. One is to perform, and the other is to prepare to perform." Immediately he went back home, broke up 6 hours into a full-day's schedule, starting at 8:00 am and accounting for long tones before his first toilet break. After two months of this focused study and pursuit of mastery, he would be on the path to being offered his first professional job as a saxophonist before the end of that year. He was later honored by offers of entry and scholarships, from not only California State Universities, Fresno and Northridge, but also famed Berklee College of Music in Boston and The Julliard School in New York. DBS passed the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE) in late 1996, essentially graduating from High School a year and a half early. Quickly he registered for classes at Fullerton College in south Los Angeles, known for it's jazz program. He was ready to begin his life. This meteoric rise in the music industry, along with his life, would be nearly completely cut short in May 1997. DBS was involved in a car collision that left his body shattered and in a coma for 3 days, only to wake with complete paralysis in the left side of his face. He was unable to play the saxophone, among the other horrors he was to face in recovery, some of which are still felt to this day. DBS' characteristic determination soon took hold. September of 1997 saw the first intentional movement of a muscle in his left face. Weeks later he could sustain a note on the sax without leaking air through the weak side of his mouth. By December he filed an audition, against hundreds of other young California saxophonists from Los Angeles and San Francisco, and every rich town in between. He was soon informed that he had earned the top spot in the State of California for the Alto Saxophone. In early 1998, while a student of Tulare Western High School (Tulare, CA, USA), DBS represented his little dairy town in the middle of the biggest farm in the USA, in his position as the Lead Alto Saxophone in the IAJE/CMEA California All-State Jazz Ensemble led by guest director Dan Gailey of University of Kansas. In 2005, while a student of College of The Sequoias (Visalia, CA, USA), he earned the 2nd Alto Sax position for the IAJE Community College All-Star Jazz Ensemble, representing his school among all community colleges in the United States. That year he also completed dual-Associate of Arts in Instrumental and Vocal Music, both from College of The Sequoias, in Visalia, California, USA. Early career in music Soon after his near-400 hours of training, and at the age of 16, barely able to drive, he joined the College of The Sequoias Thursday Night Jazz Band, led by one of his long time mentors Bill Butts, and full of many of his current (at the time), former, and future teachers, as well as some truly seasoned professionals. Through this band, he had the honor of meeting and supporting such legendary artists as: Bill Waltrous, Pete Christlieb, Gary Foster, Steve Allen, Eric Marienthal, Wayne Bergeron, Ed Shaugnessy, Bill Cunliffe, to name a few. As a result he soon learnt how to connect and work with talents of this caliber. This would be, in fact, where he learnt most of the most important lessons he ever gained in his career. It also led to a call for a job with well-known Fresno bandleader Joe Lenigan of the Statesmen Big Band, who performed big band music for some of the highest-profile events in the area and raised funds for California State University, Fresno scholarships. Some years later, DBS' voluntary work with that band would come back around in an offer of a full-ride scholarship from the same university. The band under his own name began performing around 1999, in Visalia, California, on Main Street at Visalia Coffee Company. Within months, he could be found performing at any number of establishments along Main with his own band or others, as well as in Tulare, and soon all over the Central San Joaquin Valley. In late 1999 DBS began working in Los Angeles with Wayne Foster Entertainment, a corporate band based in Southern California. Their performance on New Years' Eve, 1999 aka "The Millennium", was in Las Vegas, Nevada, at The Mirage Hotel, opening and closing for Lionel Ritchie. It was truly a life-changing experience for a teenager who'd not long ago nearly died and couldn't walk or pee normally, let alone perform at the level required for such a show. The early also 2000s saw his entry into the tribute band scene of Los Angeles where he began to perform with a band called Steely Fan Band with new classmate and friend, the late great Benny Golbin. Often at home at shows at Paladino's on Reseda Blvd near Cal State Northridge, where he soon came in to contact and began working with other bands on the scene, such as Which One's Pink, a Pink Floyd Tribute. Fast-forward to today and the East in 2015, DBS met his newborn daughter and moved to the United Kingdom in order to be as active in her life as possible. Today you can find DBS perform with some of London and The South of England's best jazz, soul, and rock musicians. DBS is currently cultivating a new small teaching studio and is accepting potential apprentices.