Sy Zucker

He was born on April 15th, 1026 in the hospital because He wanted to be close
to his mother.  At that time He lived in Washington, DC.  He went to Barnard
Elementary school in Washington DC, Macfarland Junior High and Roosevelt
High School.  He started playing the saxophone at the age of 13, a few years
later he started taking clarinet instruction.  He went into the army at the
age of 18, seven days after graduating from high school.  He got into the
Reception Center band at Fort Meade after an audition and was there for
about a year.  While at Fort Meade he became the copist for the arranger
there and started dabbing in arranging.   From there he went to infantry
basic training at Camp Croft South Carolina which lasted 16 weeks.  After
basic training he was shipped overseas and went to the Phillipine Islands and
got into a division band on the Island of Mindora playing sax and clarinet
in a regimental band   During his trip overseas, the atomic bomb was dropped
and the war with Japan ended.  That division was disbanded after the service
men with high points were dischasrged.  The point system was used to
determine when service men were separated from the army.  From that island,
he went to the island of Luzon and was stationed in an army division, the
381st. division band near the city of Manila.  In June, 1946 he was
discharged from the army.
   He went to Benjamin Franklin University where he majored in accounting.  He
also worked in his father's clothing store, which became his mother's store
when his father died in 1942.  After that he went to Catholic University where He
majored in music.  His major was applied music with a major in clarinet.
During his 1st year in college, he started studying flute.  Starting with his
second year, He switched his major to Flute with a minor in clarinet.  In 1946
when he got out of the service He also joined the Washington DC Federation of
Musicians and was playing various types of jobs.  He worked in show bands
with many well known performers, some of which were Elvis Presley, Bobby
Ridel, Paul Anka, Sammy Davis Junior, Frank Sinatra, Steve and Edie Gormey,
Jack Benny, Billy Ekstein, Mel Torme, the Four Freshmen, Nelson Riddle, just
to name a few.
   He started teaching music in the public schools of Prince George's County
in 1955.  He taught instrumental music in elementary, secondary schools and
was still very active as a professional musician.  He also at this time
started attending Maryland University.  He got married to Jo Mettee in 1959.
It took me about 7 years to complete his masters degree because of his
teaching, playing music professionally and family commitments. During this
period He also started playing string bass and electric bass.  He took a
handful of lessons with a few classically trained musician on bass, but
mostly He was self taught.   He retired from teaching in 1983 at which time He
became very busy as a performing musician.  His wife, Jo died in 1991.
At that time his two children, Melanie and Jack were married and living away
from home.  

He married Janet Kuhn in 1994.