From the Archives: Salko, Fagerquist, Armstrong, Zarchy, Stevens

For many years we’ve had a signed photo of Zeke Zarchy standing with Louis Armstrong hanging on the shop wall. Bob loves telling the story of how Zeke had an artist paint in his left hand, which at close look, seems rather larger. Here’s the photo:

Louis Armstrong and Zeke Zarchy photo signed by Zeke.

Well, we were doing some winter cleaning and came across the original photo that was used:

From L to R: Jimmy Salko, Don Fagerquist, Louis Armstrong, Zeke Zarchy, Manny Stevens

Apparently, Zeke had cropped out the rest of the trumpet section! On the left is Jimmy Salko who was a customer of Bob’s for years playing on his mouthpieces and getting valve alignments on all his trumpets. Next to him is Don Fagerquist, a fabulous trumpet player who Bob heard often around town.  In the middle is Louis Armstrong. While working for Purviance, Bob made Louis Armstrong’s last 6 trumpet mouthpieces. They were all Puviance 4*K4 mouthpieces or variations on them. Next to Louis is Zeke, who Bob knew for years and made several mouthpieces for and line up all his trumpets. Finally, on the far right is Manny Stevens. Manny was also a long-time customer of Bob’s, playing on Bob’s pieces and having alignments done whenever he picked up a new horn.