Boyd Nielsen

boydn@yahoo.com

I have played the tenor saxophone since the fifth grade. The selection of that particular instrument happened something like this:

"Dad, I need to pick an instrument for the school band."
"All right, what do you want to play?"
"Piano."
"We can't afford it."
"Oh, OK. Drums?"
"No way."
"Come on."
"You heard me, no way."
"Man! Trumpet?"
"No, we've already got too many trumpet players in the family."
"Jeeze. Saxophone?"
"OK."
"Great! Alto saxophone."
"Nope, tenor."

As you can see, I was destined to play the tenor saxophone. It turns out my dad was right, although I do now play soprano saxophone and a little piano. 
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Born and pretty-much raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, I have always been attracted to music. As a four year old I would sing along with my parents' albums, especially Elvis. I sang and played saxophone in school bands and extracurricular rock bands. In 1986 my family moved to Irvine, CA (Orange County) when I was fifteen. Again music, and bands of all kinds were a big part of my life, but after seeing Dexter Gordon in the film Round Midnight I became captivated with Jazz. 

After high school I attended U.C. Berkeley to get a universally recommended fall-back degree, but, after graduating in 1993 I immediately began studying music seriously in the San Francisco bay area. The best music program in the bay area wasn't very good, however, so for five years I played semi-professionally and worked as a paralegal to save up money for music school. I played all the major venues in San Francisco and played with such then-up-and-coming bands as No Doubt. 

In 1997 I married my college sweetheart, and in 1998 we moved to New York so I could study jazz at the Mannes Jazz and Contemporary Music Program at the New School University. While there I studied saxophone with Chris Potter, current saxophone player with Steely Dan and The Dave Holland Quartet, as well as leading his own quartet. After completing my studies in 2000 my wife and I began a family. I am the primary caregiver for our wonderful daughter, and after settling into our new roles I had started working in New York when my wife's company her office to Los Angeles. We moved here in June of 2001. L.A. has been very good to us so far and we plan to stay a while