April 28, 1973: Big band leader Alex Rene
An early portrait of a man who kept big band stylings alive for 50 years.
April 28, 1973
Alex Rene Styles Miller-Dorsey Sound
“DON’T CALL
a saxophone a sax,” Alex Rene corrects his restaurant tablemate as the coffee
arrives. “I think it degrades the instrument. After all, you don’t call a
trumpet a trump or a clarinet a clare.”
Alex’s respect for the saxophone dates back to his high
school days in Cleveland – Sammy Kaye’s hometown, he’ll tell you – when the
only chance he got to play it was as a reserve man in his high school dance
band (see separate story).
That was where his love of swing music began, too. And
although he’s not old enough to remember the days when big bands were in their
prime (he’s 29), he’s not only made the style his own, but also has put
together a 15-piece orchestra in the mold of Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey.
* * *
“I’M TRYING
to play big band music,” he says, “and the only way you’re going to do it is
with a big band. I don’t care how many amplifiers you have, one saxophone isn’t
going to sound like five.
“There’s a definite upsurge in interest in big bands again.
Actually the interest never died. The vocalists just took over and the cost of
things caught up with them. But the sound never died.
* * *
“WHAT MAKES
us unique is that we are a dance band. Most of the other big bands around today
are jazz-oriented or rock-oriented. We’re geared to the people over 30.
Because, let’s face it, what have they got to listen to these days. Most of the
entertainment is youth-oriented.”
Alex is expecting plenty of swing era music and swing era
dancing at his first monthly show tomorrow at 8 p.m. at the Regency Hotel,
It wasn’t until after he came to
They got four saxophones together in Alex’s brother’s
living room in
Before long, Alex was striking up his own band, just like
all those bandleaders he’d watched from the edge of the stage at the Avalon
Ballroom in
“I got the people together, I had the charts,” Alex
explains, “and to run the kind of band I wanted and get the kind of sound I
wanted, I found I’d have to do it myself.”
* * *
BUT THURSDAY NIGHT practices in another saxophonist’s basement in
“I was stubborn about that,” he says. “We had quite a
turnover and I didn’t want to go out with a pickup band. I couldn’t get a job
unless we were rehearsed and I could get a band unless we had a job.”
Rehearsals were moved to
“I run the band on what I call a democratic dictatorship,”
Alex says. “I listen to everyone and I’m not one of those guys who says do it
my way or else. But there’s only one person to make the decisions and that’s
me."
* * *
THE BAND,
with only Alex, saxophonist Gary Krajewski and drummer Andy Ziemba left of the
original 10, stabilized in the past year and the results have been what Alex
always thought they’d be.
“We did the Parade of Bands at LeisureLand last October,”
he says. “There were other bands there, but we were the only band outfitted in
matching suits.
“And when we started out with Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood,’
people started coming out of the walls. That one engagement was really the
unifying factor. That made them realize that what I’d been preaching for so
long would work.”
When Alex found that clubowners didn’t want to hire a
15-piece band, despite their success, he decided once again to take things into
his own hands. He’d bought and paid for those matching jackets. He’d set up and
publicize his own big band dances.
* * *
“ONE THING I
preach about,” he says, “is that we’re not going to make a fast buck. The money
I’ve put in is only starting to come back.”
What Alex really wanted, however, was for a club to have
the band in on Sunday nights once a month.
“A lot of people told me I was nuts to go for Sundays,” he
explains. “But we go from 8 to 11, early enough so that people can go home and
get a good night’s sleep for work Monday. And there’s no competition for us on
Sunday nights.
“I sold the idea to one place and the idea was that it
would snowball. The first month wouldn’t be a turnaway, but for the second
month everybody who liked it would bring back their friends.
“To make a long story short, we were to handle the posters
and newsletters, they were supposed to do the newspaper ads. But they never
did. Forty-seven people showed up. Since then I’ve done all my own publicity.”
* * *
THAT ALSO
provoked the move to
These days, instead of having to hunt for players, Alex has
a waiting list. And instead of trying to do everything by himself, he’s
beginning to assign things to other band members he feels will do them better.
* * *
“YOU’VE GOT
to have strong men on leads and I think we have them now. Pat Kolek on trumpet,
Mike Heuer on trombone and Andy Ziemba on drums. I think Andy could give Gene
Krupa a run for his money.
“Pat’s wife, Darlene, came in one night and since they sing
together in another group we asked her to sing and now she does several numbers
for us.
“We used to have trouble finding charts, especially for the
up-to-date tunes, but now Pat is our arranger. He was in the Navy Band and now
he goes to UB.
“He did our arrangement of ‘Proud Mary’ and that one goes
over with any age group.
* * *
“OUR YOUNGEST
member is Jeff Gaeth. He plays tenor saxophone and he’s 16 or 17. I guess with
him I was thinking back to when I was the extra saxophone in high school.
“He’s one of the first at rehearsals and one of the last to
leave. One night when we had to cancel a rehearsal, he was the only one I
couldn’t get a hold of.
“But I knew where he’d be. I went to the VFW Hall and there he was, waiting on the front steps with his horn.”
The box/sidebar:
Inspiration Paved Way
Alex Rene was born Alex Buncy in
“My father was a violinist,” he says, “and he had a gypsy
orchestra, but he couldn’t afford to buy me lessons.”
* * *
WHAT GOT him
playing was the encouragement of his high school band director. He let Alex sit
in on the school’s dance band, the sixth saxophonist in a five-man section.
“I owe a great deal to him,” Alex says. “He kept me at it.
Once I didn’t go to an open house the band was playing for because I didn’t
think I mattered. The next time the director asked me where I’d been. After
that, I went along on all the band’s dates.”
First thing Alex bought when he got a job after high school
was a saxophone. He watched big bands at the Avalon Ballroom and once went to
see the Glenn Miller Band six nights straight at a boat show.
He worked first at an organ company, then as a timekeeper
and finally as a musical instrument repairman. That got him his present job at
an
* * *
“I WALKED in
there looking for pads for my saxophone keys,” he says, “and when they heard I
fixed instruments, they didn’t want to let me go.
“I made up the name Rene in high school. I haven’t got an
ounce of French blood in me, but Buncy never had a musical ring to it.”
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTOS: Lower
left, Alex Rene by himself. Upper right, Alex Rene, second from left, and his
orchestra, from left, singer Darlene Kolek, saxophonists Jeff Gaeth, Gary
Krajewski, Dave Pilecki, Mike Mulawka and Bob Guiseppetti. Second row,
trombonists Jim Milrow, bassist Jim Goerss, drummer Andy Ziemba and trumpeters
Patrick Kolek, Bob Franasiak and Tom Skinner. (Text then is garbled – blame the
linotype operator. Other names are Mike Heuer and Art Cassata, but it’s not
clear where they’re standing.)
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: On
the front page of the website alexrenebigband.com, a message reads: “It is with
great sadness that we announce the passing of Alex Rene Jan. 1, 2021. Alex was
a unique person. He lived to make people happy – with music, a smile, a
handshake or a rotten joke. He loved his family, his big band, the
There’s also a link to his Death Notice, which reveals that
he was Alex Buncy Jr., that he was a volunteer at the carrousel factory museum
and had worked for many years fixing music instruments at McClennan Music
House.
Elsewhere
we learn that he retired from that job in 2010 and that he was still leading his
band, playing summer park concerts and other events. Now 18 pieces, its last
date apparently was an outdoor performance July 15, 2020, at the Town of
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