Tommie Wasserberg
I just discovered that Terry had passed over the Rainbow Bridge last January.
I was Terry's worst saxophone student his freshman year at UT (1975) and a huge embarrassment. We played a Bach 2-part invention as a tenor sax duet for a jury examination. comments i recall were "that was one of my favorite pieces" and "it sounded like a flock of ducks. I played "My Favorite Things" solo in a Jazz Lab Ensemble performance in McKay Auditorium that was straight ear-hurting horrible with Sam Noto on drums and Steve Dawson on bass.
Terry despised the sax, calling it the easiest instrument to play badly and particularly hated the soprano because it had such a narrow margin of error before it would squeak and squawk. I have to take my soprano in often to get the octave and petal keys mechanisms adjusted.
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He used to beat the time on my head with his baton, my rhythm was so bad, teaching me to set up an outward manifestation of the beat, starting with tapping my foot and getting my body completely working with this very "athletic" instrument.
When I asked him to teach me how to play Be-Bop , he refused, saying i had to pay dues. when i asked what dues was, he said "playing billions and billions of notes until the sound came out of the horn like it sounded in my head". I still can just barely play Be-pop heads. Forget solos, but I have my native Chicago R&B sound down cold.
Overall , he taught me Saxophony technique that has kept me constantly improving my own performance all these years.
We were KKPsi brothers , so we had a social relationship in addition to our academic relationship. Doctor Mohn in school and Terry after school.
Terry was a very kind and patient man and brilliant clarinetist.
I eagerly await his return on "rapture day"