Bobby Faria

Through no choice of my own, I was lucky enough to inherit some natural musical talent from my father. Like him, I have always had an affinity for playing instruments by ear. I played a little plastic ukulele and jammed with my Dad until the age of 10 when I was encouraged to take piano lessons. I really hated piano lessons, but later I would come to appreciate what they taught me. Regardless, I continued to show a lot of interest in my Dad's old arch top, so once I was big enough, my folks bought me an acoustic guitar for my 12th birthday ... although I was kind of bummed that it wasn't an electric guitar. From that point on. except for a four month stint on the tenor sax in the Freshman school band, I was totally committed to guitar. To my father's disappointment, I was amazed and motivated mostly by Blues-Rock guitarists of the 1960s and 70s such as Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton and of course, Jimi Hendrix. The power of over-driven amplifiers just grabbed my soul. For a long time, it was only guitar players that I found interesting. I was a bit obsessed and was able to learn songs from the radio after hearing them a few times. The only music that I ever actually bought were the ones that had guitar parts that I couldn't figure out (yet)... Because I was determined to avoid the actual study of written music, my parents strongly pushed me to get a college degree in something that would pay the bills. So, with their help, I became a software developer. I liked the mental challenges of the work and it did pay the bills, but it stopped satisfying my soul after about 10 years. During those years I was blown away by guitarist Mike Stern's work on a few Miles Davis albums that I heard. It was his guitar that made me buy the records. In the course of this un-scheduled foray into Jazz, I discovered tons of other great guitarists, most of whom didn't play through loud, overdriven amps. Naturally, I ended up listening to a LOT of horn players too and before I knew it, I found myself focusing on the saxophonists. They reminded me of how much I enjoyed that cheap, rental tenor in the 9th grade band.