For Casey Robinson, 41, playing saxophone has always been something more than showing off his skills for everyone to see.
For Robinson, saxophone is a vehicle through which he can convey his feelings to his God, and anyone else willing to listen.
“You have to feel it, you have to hear that idea in your mind,” Robinson said, “I’m taking what I’m feeling, and I’m expressing it through my horn.”
Robinson’s history with saxophone can be traced back to junior high school when his twin brother Corey talked him into joining the concert band. Saxophone wasn’t his first choice of instrument.
“Actually I really wanted to play flute,” Robinson said. “They didn’t have any flutes because they were all being repaired; the only thing they had left were saxophones.”
At the age of five, Robinson heard two songs that determined his fate as a musician: “Walking in Rhythm” by the Blackbyrds, and “Lovin’ You” by Minnie Riperton.
At Crenshaw High School, he was in marching band where he was a section leader and the drum major. But it wasn’t until his last year of high school that he really got serious with his career, he said.
“At that time, I really started listening to jazz,” Robinson said, specifically mentioning John Coltrane. “He’s the one I’m trying to emulate as far as my studies are concerned. He was known for, in one rehearsal, studying the C major scale for 13 hours.”
These days, Robinson performs at church every Sunday, an event that has its roots in the passing of his twin brother Corey 25 years ago this week, he said.
Robinson’s career was put on pause for several years when his mother, diagnosed with throat cancer, passed away in 1989.
“I got depressed, left school, and just left the horn altogether,” he said. “I always kind of had that yearning during that period, to return to the horn, but just couldn’t step back up.”
It finally took his to-be wife to convince him to return to the saxophone.
In addition to trying to get his associates degree and working as an MTA bus driver, Robinson has a project he’s been working on.
“Right now I have seven songs that I’ve put together for an album called ‘It is What it is,'” he said.
He mentioned one piece entitled “While You Were Away” and how it “came out of the craziest dream I’ve ever had” where he was able to speak to his brother again. “I got to see him, and I got to say what I felt in my heart.”
For now Robinson said he is content with trying to be the best musician he can be, praising the joy of music.
“Whatever you feel, whether it’s anger, joy, sadness, or even love; just strive to be a better musician than you were the day before.”