November 3, 2024

I’m really late in finding out about this, but Bay Area saxophonist William Trimble died on February 22nd after having a heart attack the day before. Bill was the saxophone teacher for the first 3 years of my schooling at Cal State Hayward. Thought I never really got along with him he did enlighten me on a lot of classical saxophone literature and techniques.

I have mixed feelings about him. On one hand, he was an amazing saxophonist in his genre. On the other hand, he treated CSUH saxophone students as second rate, generally missing half of the lessons we were supposed to get each quarter and not making them up. That eventually lead a bulk of the students to take our grieves to the department chair and us getting a saxophone teacher who would actually show up when we had lessons scheduled (Dann Zinn). Or show up for our recitals. Not that I hold a grudge, in fact, it was a good thing, as it lead me to talk more clarinet lessons and flute lessons. So, it all worked out. And it worked out for him too. He liked San Jose State better (closer to Aptos).

Regardless, he was taken too early. My best wishes to him and his family.

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