BOB KLASSEN
Friends, fans and family are coming together to celebrate a musical gem who has played the saxophone for 70 years.
He’s played saxophone for, oh, 70 years, but Bob Klassen isn’t very good at blowing his own horn.
His status is “less due to my musical ability than my good health,” Klassen claimed. “Some of the great musicians in town never made it to 85.”
But the reluctant legend will allow friends, fans and family to celebrate him on Saturday at the Bassment. He’s crossed paths with countless musicians and played in a staggering array of bands — all for enjoyment rather than a living; Klassen chose the family jewelry business 65 years ago, even though his high school teacher thought he was good enough to become a professional musician.
“I was smart beyond my years,” Klassen said this week. “If you want something with no guarantee, take up music or art.”
As a child in the Great Depression, he started playing in the Saskatoon Boys’ Band. His clarinet was borrowed.
“Maybe there were people in Saskatoon buying them, but I didn’t travel in those circles.”
He took lessons but not for long — they cost five cents when hamburger was eight cents a pound.
The band practised Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons. From his house in Caswell, it was a 15 block walk.
“We never thought anything of it,” he says.
A weekly Sunday night concert at the Roxy Theatre was a 10-block walk.
“There was no mothers and fathers dropping us off and holding our hands.”
Saskatoon’s music gem was polished by a wide range of gigs. He spent 32 years in the Exhibition grandstand band, backing big American celebrities like Bob Hope, who won Klassen over by coming to rehearsal even though he didn’t have to do.
“Not only was he a funny guy, but he had such humility in a way.”
From the blazing sun at the horse races to the Saskatoon Symphony, Klassen seems to have played everywhere. When the symphony acquired a bassoon, Klassen taught himself to play it. You couldn’t even buy double reeds in town.
Klassen has great affection for the Hobby Band, which started 34 years ago and rehearsed in members’ basement. And he was in at the founding of the Saskatoon Klezmer Band with David Kaplan who recently died.
But he loved to work as much as play. He still travels to jewelry trade shows and spends his days in the Avenue C shop.
“Gotta do something. Need the money,” he jokes. In reality, it’s about relationships.
“Your customers turn into your friends.”
Great genes have helped. His mother lived to 103 and a half.
“In 64 years of working, I’ve had two half days off sick. God has blessed me with unbelievable health. Sure, I eat properly and exercise. I’ve never smoked and I gave up booze awhile ago.”
With six children, five of whom still live in Saskatoon, there will be plenty of family at Saturday’s celebration.
“If there’s a downside, I’ll have so many friends there but I won’t be able to go out and talk to them. I’ll be busy on the stage,’’ he says.
On the other hand, he remains a little reticent about the spotlight.
“It always surprises me. I’m just a sax player, a sideman.”