Instruments used on the album

Trumpeters

Joseph (Benjamin) Wilder (1922–2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer. Wilder was awarded the Temple University Jazz Master's Hall of Fame Award in 2006. The National Endowment for the Arts honoured him with its highest honour in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 2008.

Wilder was born into a musical family led by his father Curtis, a bassist and bandleader in Philadelphia. Wilder's first performances took place on the radio program, Parisian Tailor's Colored Kiddies of the Air. He and the other young musicians were backed by such illustrious bands as Duke Ellington's and Louis Armstrong's that were also then playing at the Lincoln Theater. Wilder studied at the Mastbaum School of Music in Philadelphia but turned to jazz when he felt that there was little future for an African-American classical musician. At the age of 19, he joined his first touring big band, Les Hite's Band.

Wilder was one of the first thousand African Americans to serve in the Marines during World War II. He worked first in Special Weapons and eventually became Assistant Bandmaster at the headquarters' band. Following the war during the 1940s and early 50s, he played in the orchestras of Jimmie Lunceford, Herbie Fields, Sam Donahue, Lucky Millinder, Noble Sissle, Dizzy Gillespie and finally with the Count Basie Orchestra.

From 1957 to 1974, he did studio work for ABC-TV, New York City, and in the pit orchestras for Broadway musicals, while building his reputation as a soloist with his albums for Savoy (1956) and Columbia (1959). His Jazz from Peter Gunn (1959), features ten songs from Henry Mancini ("Peter Gunn") TV score in melodic and swinging fashion with a quartet. He was also a regular sideman with such musicians as NEA Jazz Masters Hank Jones, Gil Evans and Benny Goodman. He became a favourite with vocalists and played for Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte, Eileen Farrell, Tony Bennett, etc.

Wilder earned a BM degree in 1953, studying classical trumpet at the Manhattan School of Music with Joseph Alessi, where he was also principal trumpet with the school's symphony orchestra under conductor Jonel Perlea. In the 1960s, he performed on several occasions with the New York Philharmonic under Andre Kostelanetz and Pierre Boulez and played lead for the Symphony of the New World 1965-1971. He appeared on The Cosby Show episode "Play It Again, Russell" (1986) and played the trumpet in the Malcolm X Orchestra in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992). Since 1991 he returned as a leader and recorded three albums for Evening Star. He died May 9, 2014, in New York City, of congestive heart failure.

Alan Rubin (1943–2011), also known as Mr Fabulous, was an American musician who played trumpet, flugelhorn and piccolo trumpet. Rubin was a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He was a member of the Saturday Night Live Band, with whom he played at the Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games. As a member of The Blues Brothers, he portrayed Mr Fabulous in the 1980 film, the 1998 sequel and was a member of the touring band. Rubin played with an array of artists, such as Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Duke Ellington, Blood Sweat and Tears, Gil Evans, Eumir Deodato, Sting, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Frankie Valli, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, B B King, Miles Davis, Yoko Ono, Peggy Lee, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway and Dr John. Rubin died from lung cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Best ever albums

According to best ever abums Tabernakel is Jan Akkerman's third greatest album.

Flutes

Albert Block (1926-2015) A wonderful woodwind doubler, Al had a distinguished career having played with the Sauter-Finegan Band, Benny Goodman, Boyd Raeburn, Artie Shaw, Raymond Scott, among many other big bands. He also participated in several legendary recordings including the Miles Davis/Gil Evans Sketches of Spain and Charlie Parker and Voices; played in numerous Broadway shows including the original productions of West Side Story, Gypsy, Cabaret, Sweet Charity, La Cage Aux Folles, etc; and was regarded as one of the better flute doublers of his generation. Al’s career was a successful one but not radically different from many of his New York colleagues who came along during the last great heyday of the music and recording industry in the 1950s/1960s. Beyond his musical prowess, what distinguished him was his ability to revel in the musical development of younger players and colleagues and to support them in any way possible. He loved being around up and coming doublers, especially those who played flute well and with a classical approach. He would often go to The Juilliard School (not far from his apartment) to hear the flute students give recitals.

Daniel Waitzman (b 1943) is an American flutist and composer. Born in Rochester, New York, Waitzman grew up in New York City, where he graduated from the High School of Music and Art in 1961. At Columbia College (B.A. 1965), he majored in Music. He received his MA in Musicology from Columbia University in 1968. He studied recorder with Bernard Krainis, Baroque Flute with Claude Monteux and Paul Ehrlich and modern flute with Samuel Baron, Harold Bennett, and Harry Moskovitz. He studied composition with Otto Luening, harmony and counterpoint with Charles Walton, Genevieve Chinn and Peter Westergaard, orchestration with Howard Shanet and musicology with Paul Henry Lang.
His professional career began in 1959, when he made the first of several recordings with his teacher, Bernard Krainis, at the age of 15. In 1962, he recorded a Frescobaldi Canzona with Krainis and lutenist Joseph Iodine on the Baroque one-keyed flute. This performance appeared on a recording entitled The Virtuoso Recorder. In 1965, he had a bell key (originally invented by Carl Dolmetsch) fitted to his recorder; and he began to develop a new technique for playing the bell-keyed recorder.He arranged three of J.S. Bach’s Organ Trio Sonatas for bell-keyed recorder and harpsichord,[9] and also arranged Bach’s E Major Violin Concerti for bell-keyed recorder and strings.
It was around this time that he became dissatisfied with the early music movement’s philosophical approach to the performance of the older repertoire, and also with the limitations of the one-keyed “Baroque” flute. Later, he published several critiques of the modern early music movement, including a book entitled Up from Authenticity, or How I Learned to Love the Metal Flute—A Personal Memoir. The original essay on which this book was based served as the subject for a feature article in The New York Times in 1990.
In 1971, Waitzman acquired an antique conical Boehm flute built ca. 1875 by Louis Lot. That same year, he made his formal début in Carnegie Recital Hall as a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Award, at which he performed on recorder, Baroque flute and conical Boehm flute. He has taught flute and recorder at Queens College, CUNY, and at Hofstra University.
In 1973-74, he persuaded the brothers Bickford and Robert Brannen to revive the manufacture of conical Boehm flutes. This project led to the establishment of the flute-making firm of Brannen Brothers. By 1976 Waitzman became convinced that it was possible to play the modern flute in a manner consistent with the aesthetic requirements of the older repertoire, using a type of embouchure very close to that of Boehm, the original inventor of the modern flute. He established himself as a performer on modern flute, and gave numerous recitals illustrating the history of the flute.
He has toured the USA and Canada as soloist and chamber musician. In 1976, he performed several of Vivaldi’s Piccolo Recorder concerti with Amor Artis at Alice Tully Hall. He has served as soloist and chamber musician on flutes and recorders with The Long Island Baroque Ensemble since 1974, and performed several concerts with the Bach Aria Group, including a Telemann Concerto for Recorder and Flute (with his teacher, flutist Samuel Baron).
In 1978, he published The Art of Playing the Recorder, a codification of the technique of both bell-keyed and keyless recorders. He had tried to convince recorder makers to offer a series of bell-keyed recorders expressly designed to take advantage of the bell key and had suggested that they undertake the development of a modernised recorder; and their failure to do so caused him to turn more and more to the Boehm flute, in both their conically-and cylindrically-bored forms, as his primary instrument.
In 1980, he was awarded an International Bach Society Performance Award. In 1987, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Fellowship Grant to give a recital in New York’s Alice Tully Hall. After pondering the current state of contemporary music, and the history of music since the Enlightenment, Waitzman turned his attention to the composition of new music in 1992, in the belief that a revival of what he considered the aesthetic ideals and highly affective approach of the old masters was long overdue.

Harold Bennett (1944-1985) Harold Bennett was principal flutist for the Metropolitan Opera orchestra from 1944 until his retirement in 1965. Raised in Wyoming, he graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 1935. For the next two years, he was first flautist of the National Symphony in Washington. He went on to play first flute in the Radio City Music Hall orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony, and, from 1940 to 1944, assistant first flute and piccolo in the Philadelphia Orchestra alongside his teacher, William Kincaid. Bennett also had an extensive teaching career, and joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in 1962.

Walter Kane Bassoon

Wally Kane (1933-2021) was a saxophone player (along with other reed instruments) who was part of the original house band for Sesame Street organised by Joe Raposo. He has been heard on the show and in countless records over the years. He was still part of the band as late as 2007. He also performed tenor sax on longtime Street colleague Jerry Nelson's album Truro Daydreams (2009). Kane has been a jazz and pop musician whose credits include a stint with Doc Severinsen on The Tonight Show, backing Roberta Flack on recordings and the original soundtrack to The Wiz.

Phil Bodner Oboe

Philip L Bodner (1919 - 2008) was an American multi-instrumentalist and studio musician, active in jazz and popular music idioms. Best known as a reedist, he played clarinet, saxophone, oboe, English horn and flute. He was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and played in the 1940s and 1950s as a sideman for studio recordings in New York City; he did jazz sessions with Benny Goodman in 1958 and with Miles Davis and Gil Evans in 1958. He organised The Brass Ring, a group modeled after Herb Alpert, which had popular success in the mid-1960s, and also played with Oliver Nelson and J J Johnson in that decade. Associations in the 1970s included Oscar Peterson, Yusef Lateef, Peanuts Hucko, Wild Bill Davison and Ralph Sutton. Bodner also played the signature piccolo part on the international disco hit "The Hustle" by Van McCoy. He worked in a swing style with Marty Napoleon, Mel Lewis and George Duvivier in the 1980s, and also played with Maxine Sullivan and Barbara Carroll. He released an album under his own name, Jammin' at Phil's Place, on Jazzmania Records in 1990, with Milt Hinton, Bobby Rosengarden and Derek Smith as sidemen. Other work in the 1970s included playing with Ralph Sutton and Johnny Varro, working with Mingus Epitaph, and arranging Louie Bellson's tribute to Duke Ellington Black, Brown and Beige.

Charles Russo Clarinet

One of the premier clarinetists of his time, Charles Russo (1936-2013) was a distinguished soloist, chamber artist and orchestral musician who played in countless performances, TV broadcasts and recordings. Many of these were historic performances, such as Pablo Casals’s US appearance at the 25th anniversary of the United Nations, with Luciano Pavarotti as part of the 100th telecast of Live from Lincoln Center, and as soloist in Morton Gould’s Derivations for Solo Clarinet for the Aaron Copland tribute.

Russo was a guest artist and soloist with some of the country’s leading string quartets, chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the Juilliard, Guarneri, and Emerson String Quartets, New School Concerts, Mostly Mozart, Caramoor and the New York Chamber Symphony.

He also given much 20th-century music its first hearing, both on recordings and in prestigious series and venues for contemporary repertoire. A Grammy nominee, Russo was involved in more than 100 recordings on nearly a dozen labels, from chamber music to full orchestral works.

His critically acclamied CD recordings, released on the Premier Label, include Music for Clarinet and Strings and Strings and Clarinet Allo Cinema. In the Fall of 2004 his recordings of the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Weber were released on the Helicon label.

He performed and recorded with many of the world’s greatest composers and conductors, including Stravinsky, Copland, Stokowski and Bernstein; as well as scores of renowned performers including Arthur Rubinstein, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern and Beverly Sills.

In his teaching and master classes across the country, he had an important influence on many young musicians. He served on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music for more than 25 years and also taught at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford.

Other appointments were on the faculties of Yale, Vassar and the New England Conservatory of Music.

Russo was also the founder and artistic director of Le Mont Chamber Music Seminar in Nyack, New York.

Trombonists

Bob Alexander (1920-2012), also credited as Robert Alexander, was a trombone player who occasionally played on Sesame Street and albums. On the 1981 album Big Bird Discovers the Orchestra, he played one brief trombone spurt for the character Joan, before soloing for Stan on "Trombone Man." A veteran of the big band era going back to the 1940s, Alexander played with Jimmy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, and Benny Goodman. As a studio musician, he backed Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Teresa Brewer, Frank Sinatra, Eartha Kitt, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Lena Horne. He played behind the The Ray Charles Singers on their 1968 At the Movies album of film songs, and with Bob Haggart on his 1968 album Big Noise from Winnetka. On TV, Alexander played on The Steve Allen Show under Skitch Henderson, went with Skitch to The Tonight Show, and remained in the band under Doc Severinsen. He also played on The Perry Como Show.

Dominick Gravine was also a trombonist. His recording career spanned the ‘60s and ‘70s. His first recording seems to be Jackie Paris’s 1962 album, The Song is Paris. In 1969, he appeared on Nina Simone’s To Love Somebody. He also appeared on Donny Hathaway’s 1973 offering, Extension of a Man, and Ramatam’s In April Came the Dawning of the Red Suns, released the same year. In 1974, he performed on Bo Diddley’s Big Bad Bo and Love is the Answer, with Van McCoy & the Soul City Orchestra. He would continue to collaborate with Van McCoy on albums such as The Real McCoy and Rhythms of the World, both released in 1976. America’s bicentennial also found him teaming up with David Ruffin on Everything’s Coming up Love. In 1977, he re-united with Van McCoy on Van McCoy and His Magnificent Movie Machine. His last recording appears to be Frank Sinatra’s 1979 boxed set, Trilogy.

Stephen Johns Tuba

American Stephen M Johns studied at The Manhattan School, graduating BM and prior to that spent two years at The New England Conservatory of Music. Following his BM he gained an MM degree atThe Juilliard School. Further studies at Columbia University Teachers College earned him his M.Ed. degree.

He began his professional career with the Connecticut Opera Association during his high school years. When he moved to New York, he studied tuba with Herbert Wekselblatt, principal tuba of the Metropolitan Opera. He began substituting at the Met Opera and before long was designated as the associate tuba at the Met. As a freelance musician some of his accounts included, principal tuba of the Joffrey Ballet, The Martha Graham Ballet, The New York Pops, and The Little Orchestra Society. He has been the principal tuba of New York City Opera since 1983, the American Symphony since 1990, and New York City Ballet since 1999.

Russ Savakus Double Bass

Russ Savakus (1925-1984) was an American session bass player (electric and stand-up), violinist and singer. He recorded with numerous artists in and around the 1960s folk and folk-rock movement in New York. Earlier, he had been a part of the rhythm section for the Les Elgart swing band. According to Michael Bloomfield, who met Savakus at a Bob Dylan session: "They had a bass player, a terrific guy, Russ Savakus. It was his first day playing electric bass, and he was scared of that. No one understood nothing." However, Dylan chose to replace Savakus on tour.

Among albums Savakus has played on are Embraceable You, Chet Baker, (1957) Farewell, Angelina, Joan Baez, (1965) Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan, (1965) Many a Mile, Buffy Saint-Marie, (1965) Southbound, Doc Watson, (1966) Fire & Fleet & Candlelight, Buffy Saint-Marie, (1967) Rhymes and Reasons, John Denver, (1969) Don McLean, Don McLean, (1972) Playin' Favorites, Don McLean, (1973). He was also on "Brown Eyed Girl", Van Morrison (1967).