Saxophonist Able taught students to play and excel
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Lifelong Memphis resident, longtime saxophone player and Manassas High School band teacher Emerson Able Jr. died Saturday after a long illness. He was 84.
Mr. Able graduated from Manassas in 1948 and returned to the school to teach in 1957. He moved to Westwood High School in 1980 and taught there until his retirement in 1987.
He also worked as a professional musician, playing in the Isaac Hayes movement — after having Hayes himself as a student at Manassas.
His son Emerson Able III said his father was well-known for kicking Hayes out of the high school’s marching band because he couldn’t read music. He later helped Hayes with the composition on the music that would eventually become the soundtrack for the 1971 hit movie “Shaft.”
Mr. Able’s relatives remember him for his discipline with his own children as well as his students, requiring them to read music to play in the marching or concert bands. He also helped several of his students find a way to go to college.
“If you didn’t have the money, he would find a way to get you the money,” former student Gloria Jones said.
The result, older son Antoinne Able said, was several of his students playing in college marching bands across the country, and he said a few became the first black students to play in the University of Tennessee band.
Jones said he took his students to visit a college when they were still in high school, recognizing that most of them had never been outside of their own Memphis neighborhoods.
“He wanted to broaden our horizons,” Jones said. “He wanted to expose us to the different cultures, the intellect and all those things that make a person wellrounded and educated.”
The oldest of Mr. Able’s three children, LaTanya Able, said her father gave his students a vision for their own lives. “This man took people who didn’t have hope and made them believe in themselves to want to become something,” she said.
Emerson, the youngest of the three children, said their father emphasized music theory as much as he did playing an instrument.
“We all have a huge appreciation and understanding of music even though we don’t play professionally,” he said.
The children said their father also painted, including murals that hang on their church wall.
Mr. Able’s wife, Annie Able, died in 2011. They were married in 1954 and had three children and one grandchild.
He was awarded a brass note on Beale Street in 2012. Funeral arrangements are pending.