KITCHENER— John Tank plays his tenor saxophone in the weekly jam at Fat Cat until about 3:30 a.m.
“When I go to a jam session I am usually the oldest guy in the room,” Tank says in a telephone interview from his New York City apartment.
Fat Cat on Christopher Street in Lower Manhattan is one of Tank’s regular haunts. It’s not too far from his apartment in the East Village — his home base since 1974.
Tank, 67, started playing the tenor saxophone as a young teen in Kitchener in the early 1960s. Ever since, the tenor saxophone and jazz have been front and centre.
His is the quintessential story of the local horn player who makes it playing cool music in the jazz capital of the world — New York City.
“I wouldn’t be playing music if it wasn’t for jazz,” Tank says.
Tank grew up in a family with seven children. They lived on Duke Street and later on McKenzie Avenue. His 91-year-old mother still lives in Waterloo.
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