Instruments Saxophone | Associated acts Royale Monarchs Name Jack Schaeffer | |
Born March 19, 1946 (age 78) ( 1946-03-19 ) Origin Los Angeles, California, United States Occupation(s) Saxophone player, singer, inventor, author | ||
Birth name John Case Schaeffer II | ||
Hot House "Out of Nowhere"
Jack Schaeffer (born March 19, 1946, Los Angeles, California) is an American musician, recording artist, record producer and arranger.
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Music career
The saxophone player and vocalist was signed by producer Gary Usher to a recording contract at MCA/Universal Studios, Decca Records. As a member of the early California surf band the Royale Monarchs, he was under contract by Bob Eubanks as house band at his Cinnamon Cinder night clubs. Schaeffer also performed regularly on the television shows The Cinnamon Cinder and Hollywood Dance Time. He recorded under the name The Forte' Four with guitarist Dan Anthony, founder of the Royale Monarchs, along with Gary Usher, studio musician Glen Campbell, and drummer Ernie Earnshaw.
With Chuck Girard, he was the founder of one of the first Christian rock groups, Love Song.
After relocating to the Bay Area, he helped organize the Chicago style big band Marin. He then moved into softer folk-rock, forming a group around lead singer Patty Parsons with Dan Anthony. He was involved in the band AnExchange, which became popular in the early 1970s in and around San Francisco, Sausalito and Rocky Mountain ski resorts. They were the opening act for the premiere of the Mill Valley Sweetwater Saloon, and opened for Joan Baez at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 1974.
Schaeffer was the musical director with the Las Vegas Sands Hotel house band Enterprise for Frederick Apcar's production, The Sands Playmate Review. He toured with Roadhouse, the Bob Simmons Band, Marin, and AnExchange. He recorded two albums with The Wackers and was album producer-arranger on Ron Butler and The Saxist as well on Why Can't I, Patty Parsons solo album. Jack is the long time clarinetist in the Hot House Swing Band.
Strumbola
Schaeffer is the inventor of an original musical instrument, the Strumbola. First developed as a four course, twelve string lute-like instrument with a jazz harp sound that creates tight close-chord harmony. Later versions by the inventor maintained the four course format, but with fewer than three per course, thus bringing the strummed sound closer to that of a traditional rhythm guitar. Latest version uses a tenor guitar with two added strings/pegs. Tuning of the six strings in four courses: d fF abAb b. Update, 2011: The first Banjo-Strumbola is created from a six-string Tyler Mountain banjo. The two lower octave strings (F & Ab) made the banjo resonance sound a bit too muddy, so the string set tuning was raised two whole steps: Banjo-Strumbola tuning of the four courses from the lower:
f# aA cC d#Literary career
Schaeffer is a published author under the pen name John Schaeffer. His papers and articles have been published in Operating Cameraman Magazine, Vidya Journal, and E.T.C., Journal of General Semantics. His writings include the topics of astronomy and physics, with a specialty in semantics. He is a member of the Triple Nine Society.