Saratoga music shop owner has stories to tell
Decades of providing crucial service to musicians at heart of memoir “With the Band”
In late August 2014, the rock band Chicago was making a highly anticipated return appearance at SPAC. The afternoon before the show, saxophonist Ray Herrmann dropped in on Cole’s Woodwind Shop on Phila Street in downtown Saratoga Springs, a call made at the suggestion of keyboardist Robert Lamm, one of Chicago’s original members.
Herrmann was impressed by the memorabilia on display and the general feel of the place. After waiting his turn to speak to proprietor Billy Cole, Herrmann explained that he was playing with Chicago that evening and his sax needed some urgent repairs. But there was one problem – the instrument was backstage at the venue and he had no idea how far away that was.
Emergency calls were nothing new to Cole who suggested they hop in his car and go fetch the sax. During the short drive, Hermmann explained that actually all of his instruments could probably use some attention. Next, with an apparent dose of incredulity, he asked, “How do you have a pro shop in a small town like Saratoga?”
In his new memoir “With the Band,” Cole answers that question and along the way he tells the story of his quiet but magical life in service to music and family. During his 40-year career, most of Cole’s work repairing and restoring brass and woodwind instruments has taken place at the bench in his shop. But backstage triage has also been a specialty, ever since spring of 1981 when on short notice he darted out to South Hadley, Mass., where Hall and Oates were playing at Mount Holyoke College. Over the ensuing years, he’s become friends with legions of grateful musicians.
Flutist Ian Anderson of Juthro Tull, saxophonist Jeff Coffin of Dave Matthews Band, and clarinetist Ricardo Morales of the Philadelphia Orchestra have all been regular customers and compatriots. In a realm where referrals mean everything, the late jazz saxophonist and Troy native Nick Brignola was an important and early ally. The first time Cole serviced a high-end flute, it belonged to Irvin Gilman, then principal of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, who needed some reassurance that this rookie repairman knew
what he was doing.
Cole grew up in Troy and earned an associate degree in musical instrument technology from SUNY Morrisville.
His first repair shop was in his parents' garage in East Greenbush. One memorable assignment from those early days was removing a gerbil from a baritone horn that a couple of little kids had brought over.
After operating for a time in the Hilton Music Center in Rensselaer, Cole’s Woodwind and Brass Repair Shop made its solo debut on 19th
Street in Troy. A photo, taken outside the storefront, captures a shaggyhaired Cole with his wife Mary Alice, who was pregnant with their first child. Today the couple has four grown children and five grandchildren, while the business has a colorful and peripatetic history.
When the shop was located in a Watervliet shopping plaza, Cole had a team of six employees. But by the early 2000s, meeting payroll and other duties had taken all the fun out of the work. Reminding her husband of how they’d talked about having a little shop in Saratoga Springs, Mary Alice suggested they take a drive up and have a look around.
After parking at the corner of Phila and Broadway, they immediately saw a "for rent" sign, called the number and got a tour. Inside the small, secondfloor space was a photo of Charlie Parker and his sax. That helped convince them that the shop belonged in Saratoga. Cole signed the lease that day and downsized to only servicing woodwinds. There was one more move a few years later, not far away to 47 Phila Street in the building that houses Caffe Lena.
That quick and easy search for an initial outpost in Saratoga is one of many uncanny tales – call them serendipity, coincidence or divine guidance -- that Cole shares in his book. It’s obvious he’s a man of faith who’s full of gratitude. He recently told me, “I was born and raised Catholic and can’t say I’m devout. But I believe and I try to live it.”
Cole’s speaking voice is kind and gentle, just as you’d expect after reading the book. “I love to tell stories,” he told me. That’s also clear from the writing. His shop with its convivial atmosphere has been likened to a clubhouse. I picture Cole as a resident teller of tales, the type who gives a surplus of details that you kind of have to sit through (or page through) in order to get to the big names and rewarding moments. He was at work on the manuscript for 16 years, so many of the chapters are in effect logs of special days, great clients and memorable concerts.
Along with the thoroughness, there’s a generosity of spirit to Cole. No wonder he’s entrusted by so many musicians with the care of their most prized possessions.
“With the Band: Memoir of a Music Shop Owner” is available through Northshire Books in Saratoga Springs and Manchester, Vt. Go to: northshire.com.